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Chapter 1: What is discussed at the start of this section?
You're listening to The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe. Your escape to reality.
Hello and welcome to The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe. Today is Thursday, June 4th, 2026, and this is your host, Stephen Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella.
Hey, everybody.
Cara Santamaria. Howdy. Jane Novella. Hey, guys. Evan Bernstein. Good evening, folks. And we have a very special guest this week who's going to join us for the whole show as a guest rogue, Christian Hubicki. Christian, welcome back to the SGU. It is great to be back as a guest rogue.
What an honor. It's great to chat with you all.
So in case anybody out there doesn't know, Christian, you are the director of Optimal Robotics Lab and an associate professor of mechanical engineering at Florida State University. And that's pretty much how you are best known to the world.
Would you agree with that? That's precisely right. 100% I agree with that. Without a doubt, no one knows me for anything else. So what's going on with the show?
I mean, incidentally, we could mention offhand that you were in two seasons of Survivor.
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Chapter 2: Who is Christian Hubicki and what is his connection to Survivor?
If anybody watches that show, I don't know. What's Survivor?
Yeah.
Is that still on?
No.
Not right now. Not just any two seasons. Just finishing season 50. 50. Yep.
Yep. They just keep making those. They just keep adding numbers. It's funny how numbers work. But yeah, they have been pumping out two seasons a year since 2000 with a one-year break for COVID. So I think just to, as mathematicians would say, 2026.
But season 50, that's probably the most special season ever yet. So it's an honor just to be on that season. I think it was just like, whoa, what a huge pat on the back, I think, clearly.
It was a lot of fun. I mean, it was quite a flattering call to get. I mean, there have been like 751 people who have played the show, but who's counting? And I think that it's a rarefied error that they even call you for consideration, but to actually be out there, it really felt like something special.
I was out there with people that I watched on television when I was 14 years old when the first season came out. So I'm like, oh, I'm there with them. I'm on a beach with them. And I might have to vote them out tonight.
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Chapter 3: What unique skills does Christian bring to Survivor?
One of them was the American Meteor Society. They said that this was a three-foot wide and, of course, one meter, they have to say after that, one-meter wide meteor. It entered the atmosphere, say, north of Boston. They said that at the time that it was unlikely the meteor struck the ground. There were reports all the way from Delaware to Montreal.
So it had a big swath, you know, of the air of the country, the East Coast that actually heard it. It was a double boom. A lot of reports were of a double boom. Some people said they felt the ground shake. Some saw the fireball. And I actually found a video showing the fireball, which they said looked like a shooting star in the daytime sky.
It seemed to be going straight down, but of course, you really don't know what the angle was, right? I could have been at the bad angle, and it could have looked like it was going straight down, but it could have been at an angle. But it was big. I mean, you could tell. I mean, if you're seeing a shooting star in the daytime sky, this is bright, and this looked great. This looked big, too.
I would have loved to have seen it at night. NASA also then chimed in. They said that it was natural. It's not a satellite. It's not space debris. It's not alien technology, although they didn't say that last bit. The NASA spokesperson, Allard Butel, said that the meteor was traveling about 75,000 miles per hour, 120,700 kilometers per hour.
He said that it likely fragmented about 40 miles or 60 kilometers above the ground. And what do you guys think of the estimates of the energy release? How much TNT do you think was equivalent? A couple of hundred tons. 12 megatons. No. 12 megatons. 500 gigawatts. No, 20 exatons. No, it's only 300 tons. 300 tons of TNT. 300. That's still a lot of TNT.
But then there was a later analysis, and so we got a different detail. So NASA was saying, I guess a couple of days later, that there was like a five-foot-wide not a three-foot-wide diameter meteor, 1.25 meters or something. They said that the fireball was as heavy as an elephant. The speed of the velocity of this, they said, was not 72,000, not 75,000 miles per hour, but 42,000 miles per hour.
The density, it was kind of dense, 8,000 kilograms per cubic meter. So they said this was consistent with an iron meteorite. And I mean, I've seen iron meteorites up close. They are amazing things. They just seem like they are glued to the earth. They are so ridiculously heavy. And they also said that this did not just disintegrate in the atmosphere. They said that it fell in Cape Cod Bay.
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Chapter 4: How does the science of Survivor relate to strategy and psychology?
NASTRA Astro Materials Research and Exploration Science Division said... This fall into water is technically called a fishy squisher. A fishy squisher? A fishy squisher.
That's what they call it.
Because it squishes the fish? You know, that's kind of funny and goofy. I think I could have come up with something a little better. But okay, it's fishy squisher. So I'll end with my experience with this. I am on stage at the extravaganza in Madison. And because I'm hopelessly addicted to my cell phone, I felt the vibration in my pocket. Okay.
We were on stage, and it was during a period where we weren't doing anything. So we're just standing there, and I just took a quick look at my screen. And it was from my wife, Liz. And I see two things. I see Boston, and I see Meteor. And then Jay notices me, stands right in front of me, and says, put your phone away. So, of course, I had to obey Jay.
Well, I am the producer of the show, Bob.
Yes.
So I'm constantly wearing multiple hats. I am monitoring everything that's going on.
That's right. So, of course, I put my phone away. We did a fantastic show. But I got to say, for the rest of that show, I'm thinking, oh, yeah, Boston is a smoking crater right now, and we're doing this show. So I got to say, I was kind of low-key scared for the rest of the show, thinking, how bad was this? Because I only really caught two words. Right.
Of course, when the show was over, I looked and it was fairly benign, no injuries. So that's my story. So that's it. I wish I could have seen it or even heard it. But this has been your Fishy Squisher Quickie with Bob. Back to you, Steve.
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Chapter 5: What are the issues with expensive audio cables?
They have little tabs that can easily break off. The cap comes off completely if you unscrew it far enough. And if you lose that, a cap on a $4,100 cable, if you go to replace that, I bet you you're not paying just a couple dollars to replace that. You're probably paying big bucks again just for that cap. And also, you can wiggle it loose on that one. And it can create an interference.
You don't get that with the $7 cable. You don't even have that option, basically. So we're talking about the actual physical components not even being up to the gorilla test, basically, versus the $7 cable. Yes.
So, Ev, I can't be the only one who's thinking this, right? I'm never going to buy a $4,000 cable, but I might be comparing the $7 cable to the $15 cable. And when I'm doing that, I think there is a bias, because we've all been marketed to our whole lives, that the cheapest possible option is probably lowest quality. So we should get the sort of mid-level.
Or one or two steps above the lowest expensive. Yes, but maybe we shouldn't.
Maybe we shouldn't. Product dependent, Kara. I think that's true for most things. It's just for cables, it doesn't matter. It's just the signal's going through something conductive. It just doesn't matter. So there's two layers here, right? So there's what they did in this study, which was look at the actual characteristics of the audio signal coming through. Mm-hmm.
versus can a person tell the difference?
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Chapter 6: How do biases affect our perception of audio equipment?
And so this is a stricter test, a comparison, where they're looking at actual, and this showed no difference. But there's probably also a level of actual difference that you still can't hear the difference of, right? For mostly neurological reasons, just because of the way your brain processes the audio information. You know what I mean?
It's... Yeah, it's like the old conversations we used to have about monitors and stuff, and we're like, after a certain point, you don't need that resolution.
Yeah, it's the same thing. It's even worse for audio, because your brain processes it so much that you're not going to really perceive subtle differences. And in this case, they don't even exist. There are no subtle differences. Yeah.
Which is in line with the prior research on this very topic. Recently, seeking to illustrate just how forgiving audio transmission can be, he passed line level audio through some unconventional conductors, including volcanic mud and an unripe banana. And the signal flowed fine through the banana. And most people couldn't hear the difference.
Right. Between that and a copper cable.
That's right. Wow.
That's right.
But how long does the banana last, though, Evan? That's the way they do it.
Yeah. Every podcast. Unripe bananas. I think it was a Cavendish. It was not a Gros Michel. Blue Java. Sorry, Steve.
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Chapter 7: What is the significance of room treatment in audio quality?
Yep. And test after test after test. I mean, it never pans out. Like, it's just not worth it. You could go to a hardware store and get whatever they have there, and it'll work. You can go to RadioShack. Do they still exist?
No. No.
Sorry, Steve.
I know. Yeah, no. Right, the components of the cable, actually, and the material it's made from. Sure, can you get a badly made cable? Yes, you can. But in most cases... There's going to be good enough shielding. The resistance is going to be correct. It won't be prey to corrosion. And you're going to be okay with your cables. Just don't be tricked into spending thousands of dollars.
Even if some of the top audio engineers who record Taylor Swift or whoever else, and I don't know if they use it or not, are going to tell you otherwise and that, oh, I'm the expert in my industry. You should definitely use the expensive cables. Don't fall for it. Don't believe it.
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Chapter 8: How does Survivor serve as a social experiment?
They make a good point in the article to say, if you're going to spend $4,000 on your audio system, don't put it in the freaking cable. So what do you think the number one thing is to put your money into if you want to really improve your listening experience?
Oh, it's obvious.
The microphone.
The feng shui.
The feng shui.
The microphone. No, it has to be the unit itself. Yeah. Like the preamp? The other components. Yeah, the amp.
Wait, are you talking about listening or recording, Steve? Listening, listening. Oh, listening. Yeah, like the box, like the preamp or the amp.
So those are way more important than the cable, but arguably the room treatment probably has the biggest effect on your listening experience. Oh my gosh, yeah. That's why when you go into the audio shop, you go into the room, and isn't this sound fantastic? Yeah, that's a perfectly treated room for audio. That's why. You mean that they've deadened the room. I brought it home.
It didn't sound the same.
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