When is it good to drag your feet?
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- Опубликовано: 26 сен 2023
- Caroline Roper, Ella Hubber and Tom Lum from the podcast 'Let's Learn Everything!' face a question about free will.
LATERAL is a weekly podcast about interesting questions and even more interesting answers, hosted by Tom Scott. For business enquiries, contestant appearances or question submissions, visit www.lateralcast.com
GUESTS:
Caroline Roper: / carolinethebug
Ella Hubber: / ellahubber
Tom Lum: / tomlumperson
Let's Learn Everything podcast: www.letslearneverythingpod.com/
HOST: Tom Scott.
QUESTION PRODUCER: David Bodycombe.
RECORDED AT: The Podcast Studios, Dublin.
EDITED BY: Julie Hassett.
GRAPHICS: Chris Hanel at Support Class. Assistant: Dillon Pentz.
MUSIC: Karl-Ola Kjellholm ('Private Detective'/'Agrumes', courtesy of epidemicsound.com).
FORMAT: Pad 26 Limited/Labyrinth Games Ltd.
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: David Bodycombe and Tom Scott.
© Pad 26 Limited (www.pad26.com) / Labyrinth Games Ltd. 2023. 
Развлечения
Damn, that carcinisation joke was legit on point.
5:45 I like the caption "Both Toms laugh"
Regarding the electricity, this applies when high voltage wire gets damaged and touches the ground. There’s a large potential gradient starting at the point of contact. If you stand with your feet close both feet have the same (or very similar) potential. However, if you make a big step, your feet end up on different potentials and electricity flows through your legs.
For same reason, when lightning strikes the ground, humans are at a less risk of injury by electric shock when standing on the ground than big 4 legged animals [like cows and horses] because the gap between the legs is lesser for humans than for the big 4 legged animals.
The advice you're given from the UK distribution network operators if you end up in a vehicle that's in contact with a live overhead line and on fire (otherwise you'd just stay inside) is to jump out and run with bounding strides such that you don't have both feet on the ground at the same time.
There's also a chunk in the wiring regs about earth potentials. It's a big thing particularly in farms as the ground tends to be more able to make good contact with things standing on it, and cows have rather further between limbs than humans typically do (plus a human's heart is rarely in the path between one leg and the other).
Yep, Caroline was misremembering the reasoning, the goal is to NOT be part of the circuit lol. It isn't lifting one leg that is dangerous it is having two legs on the ground at points with a voltage in between. You could hop away on one foot safely... as long as you don't fall.
@@tomcardale5596 A human body, electrocuted through the legs, will have the electricity take *every* possible path through it, and it takes a few dozen milliamps to stop a heart. So you're still buggered, just less than cows.
ah yes, how comforting to be slightly less dead :D@@greenaum
This also applies to anywhere you find a lot of snakes. walk loudly and hopefully they move away before you ever see them.
I too watched the most recent Fionna and Cake episode
@@perplexedon9834 not sure what that is. People did know things before the internet.
@@SolivagantCraig Haha, I know. It's just a moderately obscure joke for people watching the show.
I grew up in rattler country and this was basic training as a kid. Learn where they like to sun themselves, learn where they like to hide, don't put your hands anywhere you can't see.
@@adamsbja I grew up in a place with literally two types of snakes, only one venomous and not even that bad in comparison to elsewhere in the world, and we would learn to always stomp our feet while in the forest lol. So even in less snake filled places, that is common knowledge.
"Jelly fish are the live wires of the sea"
Not a bad phrasing, that.
That one got shut down immediately but I loved it. 😅
Too bad he didn't call that back for stingrays, which are even more literally the live wires of the sea.
Er... electric eels, anyone? They're even _shaped_ like a wire.
@@RFC3514that was exactly what I would say, they literally are live wires when they shock you!
They used to tell electrical workers to hop on one foot to prevent connecting the circuit around fallen lines. However this creates a risk of falling (especially since this is often after storms and thus the ground is slippery) which would connect the circuit in just about the worst possible way.
They're now told to shuffle such that it's unlikely that their body will be a useful shortcut, and if it is it will hopefully travel up one leg and down the other rather than going through their heart. This is also why substation are always resting on gravel, the drainage is supposed to improve safety.
"are just absolutely covered in live wires everywhere" - Yeah, that sounds about right for our power company here in northern California (PG&E).
I thought PG&E was famous for its wires not being live
@@88porpoise The circuits broken right at the movement, but if you'll just grab this wire here and that wire just over there...
Tom 1: "It's become 'name every sea creature' now"
Tom 2 at 5:57: "Prairie Dogs?"
I knew this one immediately. I am about to mention another channel. Brave Wilderness did a video where the crew was having to walk through a body of water that could have sting rays and Coyote explained about having to drag your feet so you don't step on them. Sting rays partially bury themselves in the sand so if you don't drag your feet you could step on one and get stung.
With Florida and California, my first thought was that it wasa Disneyworld/Disneyland "slow down and stay a while" thing intending to make guests of the parks use fewer attractions, so they could get more entry tickets for the same number of ride uses
As a San Diegan I got this right away, so hearing all the guesses was extra fun. 😎 okay but seriously now a PSA: if you forget the shuffle and do get stung, the remedy is NOT to have someone wee on it! Immediately get your foot and leg into water that is as hot as you can stand it, and keep replenishing that water. (This sadly will not work for sandworm related injuries.)
Well, putting water of any temperature on the sandworm would give it a bad time. But you've probably been swallowed by then, so it's a bit late.
Its so cool when we get these little references to the Tom Scott Cinematic Universe. I can really feel the TSCU is bullding to something
If only... if only Tom also mentioned Australia too, I may have gone for Coffin-ray from very old Technical Difficulties show.
Man, Brannan's deadpan "Coffins!" in response to Tom asking how it kills, prompting the tangent about the woodworking fish just chucking boxes at random passersby was so so funny
'Just throwing coffins at people'
@@gmdille And that's why he's everyone's favourite Gary Brannan.
As soon as it got to beaches and jellyfish were mentioned, that was exactly what I thought of
@@abigailcooling6604I thought it was because that other Gary Brannon was a POS
/Disclaimer: I am not aware of any other Gary Brannan
As a floridian i got this one from the title
Literally got an ad from PG&E (pretty much THE Californian power company) about what to do if a power line falls near your car. I was so sure that was going to be it.
The fact that "The Stingray Shuffle" is not a 90s dance song is disappointing. It deserves to be up there with the Cha-Cha Slide.
The Electric Slide….🤪
The state of Florida has asked us to explain why shuffling feet’s a must-do
Applies to all of the coast of the Gulf of Mexico too. Once visited a barrier island with no dredged area and dock. So we had to anchor our boat out a ways and walk to the island. Took a while to get there with us shuffling our feet the whole way.
I know this one. I am a native Floridian. I actually explained to a manager why I have a shuffling walk.
It is to alert sting rays when you go into the water that you are there and getting closer.
Are you sure? Because I've lived here for 42 years and never heard this or told someone to do it. Wouldn't stomping in the water be more effective than dragging your feet? And just because you do it once in a while at the beach, why would it change the entire way you walk? None of this makes sense! Am I the only sane person here? Yes, we would be careful in ankle deep water but we never walked a weird way.
Growing up near the ocean and Gulf, you learned the shuffle. Native Floridian here. Maybe they quit teaching it to northerners or they didn't believe it.
@@haggielady They taught it to us the last time I was there a couple years back
As a recent Californian tourist I was told that if you shuffle your feet you would bump into stingrays instead of stepping on them and unless the stingrays were planted onto the ground with your body weight then they wouldn’t sting you
@@haggieladymaybe it is a part of florida without many stingrays
Florida possesses quite a bit of schadenfreude when it comes to power lines. We put the lines aboveground when we are most likely to have high winds or big, heavy things fall on them. For example:
--Pine trees are basically balsa wood as far as hurricanes are concerned, so we put power lines right up beside them to prop the things up.
--Oak trees get pruned back away from power lines. This makes the top of the tree heavy on the opposite side and prone to falling over in high winds...Fortunately oaks spread hundreds of roots out around themselves, so when the wind blows the tree over it drags the nearby utility poles with it!
--We only bury wires in places with near-zero chances of having the wind knock powerlines over. Unless there is a gas line buried alongside the powerlines....that is a combo Murphy cannot ignore. A tree will rip up those lines and pipes even if a tornado has to hurl that tree from a county away.
Florida man is not a person, he's a lifestyle.
I was gonna guess something like the sand being very hot, and dragging your feet letting you scrape away the hottest top layer to get to the slightly cooler sand below and not burn your feet, but then i realized you'd probably end up *covering* your feet in that hot sand, and submerging a body part in an uncomfortably hot substance is not usually a way to avoid burns
Most of the California coast is quite a bit colder than most people expect. In fact, the cold ocean water surrounding Alcatraz was one of the reasons that so few prisoners ever escaped.
This is one of the best groups of people on this show.
as an aussie some part of me felt neglected by this
I was thinking Rockfish, fish that look like a rock but have toxic barbs if you step on one. No idea where those are found, might be Flordia/California.
That was my first thought too. I'm know they're found in the South Pacific; most likely other places as well.
5:27 that was such a perfect quip !
If citation needed taught me something, that would be an instance of a "stereo"!
@@aloysiuskurnia7643 Didn't that only happen twice? (once in matt's kitchen as a throwaway and once on a live show)
I got this one right away like a lot of other folks. Though I don't live in the US, I do live in a coastal city with lots of stingrays so we were always warned as kids to watch where you're stepping and shuffle your feet!
I was surprised to get this one immediately in spite of living a in a land-locked state. Something about dragging your feet specifically on beaches made me promptly think of the Shuffle.
Of all the episodes I've watched, this is the first question I actually knew the answer to!
I am shocked and astonished that the people on the show have NOT seen every Tom Scott video ever released! =O
Since this was about tourists in CA and FL I assumed it was something Disneyland/DisneyWorld related.
Me too!
Immediately thought of the beaches because I remember that when in Sydney there were signs about doing the stingray shuffle to avoid stepping on one and scare them away.
Also had the same but for weaver fish in Dorset, UK.
Knew this from the title alone. The stingray shuffle!
I knew this one instantly; I've lived in Florida for over 25 years, and can confirm the "stingray shuffle" is a thing here.
I’ve been one of those tourists in California. Definitely good advice.
I was SO confident this was going to be the omnimover attractions at disney parks (florida and california).
"Jellyfish are the livewires of the sea" that is just beautiful how did nobody comment on that?
The thumbnail though! 😂😂😂
My immediate thought was one of two things:
Either they want people to use the doormats to scrape their shoes before going into places, y'know, to get all the dirt and stuff off of them.
or
They want people to move slowly and actually take in the sights and visit local businesses and such, instead of only going to major tourist hotspots and 'rushing' through their stay at LA.
I was going to say the first because when I visited CA recently I got told to do that because the beaches had tar on them
Not me remembering Gary Brennan going 'PFFFFFFFFFFFFTTTT and arcs' when peeing on an electric ray that one time in the technical difficulties :D
1:34 Tom is surprised and almost sounds offended that he didn't know something :o)
-------------------------
By keeping your feet close together (shuffling without lifting your feet), you minimize the voltage difference between your feet and reduce the risk of electrical current flowing through your body. This technique is called the "shuffle step" and is a recommended safety measure in such situations.
Shuffling away from the wire, rather than walking or running, is also crucial because lifting a foot can break the electrical connection and increase the risk of electrical shock. The shuffle step should be slow and deliberate, keeping your feet in constant contact with the ground and close together, to minimize the risk.
I immediately knew it was sting rays. I've been afraid of the ocean my whole life, but when I was 20, my friends finally cajoled me into swimming on one of our beach trips. Took me a while to warm up to it, but had fun until some guy walked up to our group to warn us about the sting rays. Made a b-line for the shore, sat in a lawn chair drinking beer and watching purses the rest of the day, I am NOT going out like Steve Irwin.
The description calls this a question about free will...?
The age old question "Do stingrays have free will?"
@@arnelilleseter4755doubt it, no one would chose to kill Steve Irwin
sand desert, CA
I'm from Florida, born and raised, and I never knew this. I also have never seen a stingray in real life except maybe at aquariums. Huh.
I *did* however know about our seaweed problem -- it's impossible not to when your legs get covered in seaweed every time you go to the beach. I had no idea there was a specific reason why, though, so I learned something else today, too!
That's crazy to me, I see stingrays near daily, swimming through the canals behind my house.
And learned of the stingray shuffle way before I even moved to FL. First or maybe second visit, it's almost always posted on a sign at beach entrances.
So regarding the dragging the feet in California and Florida it's due to the sand being hot. When walking barefoot on the sand, the sand at the top is way too hot and could literally burn your feet. So if you drag your feet (there by creating a rut) the sand underneath is cooler and it won't burn your feet. It doesn't have anything to do with sandworms, or electricity.
Also wearing flipflops keeps you from burning your feet.
Love how confidently incorrect you are.
"Electric Fish Barrier" is an excellent name for a prog rock concept album.
I thought the sandworm like thing made sense because here in Norway back in primary school we were told to stomp to scare away vipers.
When Tom was talking about the electrified canal, we found out the other 3 don't watch his channel. lol
Having lived within a mile of the beach in CA, I knew this one instantly
wow
At our beaches we have weevers. They also have venomous spines and burrow in sand. Going to suggest this technique to anyone who is afraid to go in the water because of them. Never known anyone who steppped on one though.
My first guess, just from the states in question, was that it had something to do with Disney (Land and World). Maybe a point for creativity?
The “you’re fine if you stand still” thing is inaccurate.
High voltage hitting the ground has a radius and the potential difference dissipates as you move away from the contact point following the inverse square law.
Step potential occurs when you are touching to points of that radius which have varying potential thus you create a circuit.
So it’s not about whether you’re moving. It’s about whether you’re touching the ground at two points of varying potentials.
My mind immediately went to Disney Land/World, but I couldn't figure out which thing would require shuffling.
LIkewise, when I heard "tourists in California and Florida" I immediately guessed there was a mouse related thing I wasn't immediately thinking of. Then Tom said his thing was about the beach.
IMO as an australian, we should rename the stingray shuffle to the steve irwin shuffle.
It seems fitting that as a coastal California resident myself, I’ve actually been stung by a stingray on the foot because I wasn’t following this rule. It’s not his fault I stepped on him.
It ruined my day, but no worse than that
When California and Florida came up, my first thought was Disney lol
I thought it was because the heat, The sand gets really hot so stepping bearfoot on the upper layer of sand(closest to the sun) is worst then covering your feet with sand and dragging them thus moving on the layer of sand under the hot layer. but then why would it be specific to California and Florida?. Well good to know!
I presume this refers to wading in the water at a beach, and not to walking on the (dry) beach itself.
Initial thoughts: So Shai-Hulud doesn't come after them. Dune joke aside... It could be about visiting places where there is low visibility or misstep hazards, so you always keep a sure footing. Could be visiting a place where there is some electrical hazard potential, so you keep being "grounded"; or even simpler, it's an exhibit about static electricity and requires dragging your feet to build up a charge. Or perhaps it's for some moonwalking lessons.
But why those two places only? Could be a theme park ride (like a standing rollercoaster) where your weight is supported not by a seat, but your feet. Maybe an activity in low-level water where swimming would disturb and push away wildlife ("swim with the dolphin" type deal), or you need grip to fight against strong currents.
First guess of the episode: Tom Lum and me are on the same wavelength.
Sea raviolis... it was the sea raviolis all along...
My first thought was weaver fish - even tho it wasn't that - still good advice for us brits
I sorta feel like an idiot and sorta not at the same time. From the moment Tom gave the prompt, I was repeating 'STONEFISH STONEFISH STONEFISH'. Totally forgot about stingrays..
i live in California and go to the beach every year and have NEVER heard of this.
👍👍
Only at 1:41 into the video and I finally realize there are two Toms on this podcast
I got it at 5:15 and I live in California
I knew this bc a classmate in elementary school went on vacation to Florida and told us about "the stingray shuffle". I feel like slumdog millionaire.
When Tom said Sandworms, I went to Tremors.
Q: When is it good to drag your feet?
A: Whenever you want to always be in contact with the floor... 😅🤣
I knew this one the moment I saw the prompt. Florida Keys best practices right there!
I remember learning this about sting rays
I thought it's something about the quicksand effect where you shuffling along the wet sand would sink your feet into it until you stop because vibrating immersed sand would make it behave like a liquid.
But I can't really think how the average beach goe would find thst practical other than "ooh science!"
I remember the electrified water channel. Did these people just admit they don't watch Tom's channel? 😉
My first thought is that they're both known for beaches and sand could make a decent exfoliator.
I thought it's about hot sand. Usually only the top layer of sand is hot, so dragging your feet across the sand helps your feet remain unburnt.
I guessed needles at first. Like drug issues in the states and maybe lots of needles were being left on beaches and get hidden in the sand and they'll stab your foot if they're pointed up but if you shuffle then you're fine. Kind of close really, being stung by a needle vs being stung by a stingray
Just like the three words that would have saved John Belushi’s life were “no Coke, Pepsi!” the 4 words that would have saved Steve Irwin’s life: “do the stingray shuffle!”
Ah, this is why I always drag my feet! 😂 (Born in California, lived in Florida while a toddler)
i got the crab joke :D
There's something wrong with the low-contrast subtitles? to me they are just white boxes and my hearing is to lousy to to hear :(
I would have mistakenly stepped out of this one. I thought it was shuffling your feet under the top layer of sand to keep from burning your feet.
My thoughts went to Weever Fish.
Once you said it was a sea creature I started chanting stingray.
Honestly I'm glad it was stingrays. I was thinking leeches or some sort of parasite for a bit.
Good to know, I stick to the beaches of my own country. The only beasts walking there are the strandbeesten by the artist Theo Jansen. And they are not dangerous, although they sometimes looks that way.
Steve Irwin might not have shuffled off his mortal coil if he'd only shuffled a bit more?
When I first clicked to this video I was thinking of NFL players that drag their feet to stay in bounds after a catch so that they get the first down / touchdown.
CROYKEY! Just think, if someone had warned Steve Irwin that he was supposed to shuffle his chest in the sand _before_ his cardiology appointment with the stingray, he'd still be alive today! Personally I feel much more comfortable inside on the setee, playing Factorio in my snuggie with a steaming cup of jasmin tea.
Stingrays are kind of old now, right? Like when was the last one sold?
Ooh, there's actually one in my neighborhood. It's so pretty...
Why would you believe that specifically for Florida, Tom? I don't recall any major disasters connected to the power network or massive rolling power outages in Florida, but do for California.
As an Australian, the number one reason to drag your feet is when walking through long grass or weeds where you're likely to encounter snakes
silly me, i assumed it had to do with the flintstones, and community involvement in stopping their cars on some attraction.
There's not too much lore in Dune. There are only 3 books. Well, 4 if you are being generous. NO OTHERS EXIST>
My immediate thought was American football 🏈, after a catch to ensure your feet are "in bounds"...
P sure you're supposed to not be on 2 feet near a down power line. Don't they teach you to hop on one foot to get away?
first thought is either to enjoy the sand in general. or to just spend as much time there
so many stingrays aaaaaahhhhh !
I assumed it was to keep away the cartoon mice.
My guess was a secret Disney theme park initiation ritual.
And now I've got the stingray music in my head. 🥴
I figured it was used needles.