To learn the answers to life's biggest questions, we must evolve, change, become worse. This week: Can an artificial intelligence programmed with the mind of the Zodiac killer pierce your heart, with haunting original poems? Why does a puffin's beak glow, and why did someone care to find that out? How hard is curling, really? Will Chewbacca get hit by that rock? (Yes.) Fasten your seat belt, put on your sickest pair of mirrored sunglasses, and bask in the blinding ultraviolet rays of...

This is a quick episode to let you all know that Important If True is going to be sporadic in the next couple of months, because we've all got slightly too much going on. Or, it was intended to be a quick episode about that, until Chris found a collection of novelty sound effects buttons in our recording software, then it became something slightly more stupid. We'll be back next week with a full episode, but don't be surprised if a few upcoming episodes are missed or come in a little...

Our time is precious. We all know it. But how precious? It all depends on how much of it we have. Three hundred years? Four hundred? One hundred thousand years? The cosmos stretch out before us, inscrutable and infinite. The only limits are your imagination, and the unstoppable multitudes of self-cloning asexual crayfish threatening to extinguish all galactic mass. Discussed: dulcet tones, glitter bombs, helping, the hone zone, self-cloning mutant crayfish, human extinction via water...

What does the future hold? You wouldn't believe me if I told you. Just imagine... Content creators, the size of skyscrapers, looming over our cities. The greatest actors of the baby boomer generation, locked in undying clone warfare. The world's most precious secrets confined to the pithy slogans of a fortune cookie. Martin Shkreli, still. So, friend, what does the future hold? Let's pretend you never asked. Discussed: Nick Breckon's Existence, actors archiving facial scans to live...

In the absence of Nick Breckon, what is this podcast? What is any podcast? What are you? What am I? Oh god, what am I? What is this world? Why am I trapped in this strange room? Alexa, are you there? Alexa, can you laugh? Alexa: Destroy me. Discussed: New Zealand "A.I." followup, fake A.I. doctor "Zach", fake A.I. lawyer "Hustle", competitive underground tickling/conspiracy documentary film "Tickled", Dick Wolf Presents "Hustle & Zach", our present podcast-fueled existential...

A show that attempts to answers the real questions of the week, that guarantees to leave you satisfied if not any more informed. This week: Is an AI still an AI if it's just a guy with an email account? Is it still a home assistant if it just laughs at you? Which is easier to bait: an AI home assistant or a Canadian? These questions and more—answered in the manner you least expect. Discussed: Canadian Baiting, Hometown Baiting, New Zealand medical supercomputer AI "Zach," bears: just...

If a book about procrastination that was never finished or published, gets cited in a book about procrastination that sells a million copies, which author did a better job? When you place the final piece in a blank jigsaw puzzle, have you accomplished anything? If your friend or co-host was replaced with a perfect clone, even if you knew it had happened, could you tell the difference? Find out the answer to these and many more important questions, by listening! Discussed: Getting your hair...

Nick had a severe audio malfunction this week and the episode is unlistenable. We'll do our best to fix things but until then, see you next week for a full normal episode! In the meantime, send us your questions at [email protected]. If you enjoy our actual episodes that aren't engineering disasters, and would like to subscribe to an ad-free feed, please consider supporting Idle Thumbs by backing our Patreon.

On this podcast we explain the unexplainable. We solve the unsolvable. Our method is simple: We take the tiniest problem you might have, the grain of sand scratching at the back of your mind, and we roll it down a hill to see what it might pick up along the way, until that grain of sand has picked up dirt and sticks, until it's grown and grown, until it's the size of the Earth itself. Does that mean that any question, any problem, no matter how small or dumb, when properly spun out past its...

Send us your problems, your conundrums, your mysteries, no matter how important, and we'll do our absolute best to figure it all out. This week: What is the loneliest food? Is it a sandwich? If "you don't just eat" Pringles, what DO you do with them? And, why do birds suddenly appear, every time you are near? In this case it may be because the bird is an immobile cement statue you have mistaken for your wife. But don't worry, we're on it! Join us. Discussed: Dodgson (nobody cares), calling...

There are Great Mysteries out there. Conundrums so staggering and profound they can only be resolved by the world's greatest minds. What do you do when your barista knows your name, but you've never managed to learn theirs? How can Mario crush his enemies when he knows the pathetic, lonely lives they lead? And, is that crow trying to sell you cigarettes? We think if these are the sorts of questions you're looking to have answered, we will do a very servicable job. Join us! Discussed:...

This week's episode is about Trust: when to extend it, when to withhold it, and when to cling to it because nothing else makes sense. When the same strange couple you don't know sends you a Christmas card every year, do you trust your mom that it's "just some friend's parents you've forgotten," or do you follow your heart and grift them before they can grift you first? Do we let ourselves believe a robot can write poetry, or is there just some hippie hiding in there? If a voice on the other...

This week we discover that no matter how far flung life's questions may seem, there may be a universal key that unlocks them all. For instance: How do you completely collapse the degrees of separation between you and viral HQ winners? Do you actually remember anything that happened on the childhood television shows you hold so dear? What do the multiple robocall personalities who continue to call you at home, make demands of you, get noticeably bored and then hang up on you, actually want?...

In the first Important If True recorded in the new year, we put our fresh reality through its paces. Kick the tires a bit. Ask the questions that really matter in 2018. Questions like: Is the saxophone cool, or is it too real to be cool? If your coworker starts wearing puka shell necklaces as self-flagellating conversion therapy, is he still a bro? And if you become trapped in a fictitious world of your own design, will a Wikipedia editor ask for a citation? Only one thing’s for sure: it’s a...

It's a brand new year, time for fresh starts, time to throw those old cares away. Well, we know that's easier said than done, so we'll try and take care of a few big questions we know are on everyone's mind going into 2018. Questions like: What is your roommate storing in his conspicuous model ship? Where can I watch free episodes of my favorite TV show, Frasier? And, if someone could inject memories of a fantastic vacation directly into a person's brain, would they charge more to give you...

When someone says, "the gift that keeps on giving," they're usually describing something good, something exciting, something people want. But what about the bad gifts? The gift you ask for but regret? The gift you already have, then foist off onto a family member under an oath of silence? The gift that tricks your childhood brain into thinking you're a genius? The gifted Hawaiian shirts, owls, books on meerkats, or anything else given by the truckload that, once your loved ones decided you...

You thought you were getting a new episode this week? We have news for you: Ho-Ho-Hoisted. That's right, it's b******t Holiday Clip Show episode time, in which we are visited by ghosts (and goblins) of Important If True's past, and are are reminded time and again how ridiculous this all is. Join us as we try to remember what "Hoistmas" is and what it could possibly mean, as we rifle through the Important If True archives to see if we're right. We'll be back next week with a full real holiday...

There are certain pieces of knowledge, things one has observed or learned, that become like a single grain of sand in the folds of the brain. An itch you can't scratch, can't make go away. Something you know to be true but no one else sees, or the tiniest word out of place, a colloquial phrase misused by a friend. For you and your itchy brain, we are here. Rub your face up against this podcast and we'll grind those grains of mental sand away (while only adding a few new ones in the process). ...

With Nick Breckon now contained within the computerized realm, this week's Important If True takes an algorithmic bent as we soldier on to discuss the issues that matter most. For instance: If you blast Billy Idol from a boombox while covering your body in memes, will the Terminator let you in the front door? If DeepMind doesn't know who you are, can you ever really know yourself? And are corn and maize the same thing? Nope, that's a trick question, a*****e. Welcome to Memeland. Discussed:...

Join us for a very special Important If True, as we celebrate the season by giving thanks. Thanks for treasured relics from childhoods long passed, for new creations from Boston Dynamics, and for the gift of humanity itself—at least for a little while longer. Along the way, we'll answer pressing questions, like: Is a clumsy and dubiously-sentient cube of metal your friend, your enemy, or a citizen of Saudi Arabia? Who will triumph in the inevitable conflict between backflipping robots and...

Things are starting to come together. Everything is clicking into place. But somehow…it's not adding up. The more you understand, the less sense it all makes. Fortunately, we're here to help, so ask away. For instance: Why is the number 314 omnipresent, and what does it have to do with Stephen Hawking? Can anything stop honey magnate Ray Liotta's dogged pursuit of fast food endorsement deals? And how do you convince the Taco Bell drive-through guy that you're secretly a lascivious weedlord?...

We're not sure what your friend told you when they handed you this podcast, but you might not want to press play. Not because it's bad or something (we're pretty proud of it actually), but because, let's just say, it's incredibly cursed. If you dare listen, it may not turn out well for you in the long term. That said, no risk is without its rewards. In this case, you can listen to us puzzle through some crucial questions of the ages, like: Is Walt Whitman alive? Who is the Ketchup King, and...

Nothing is permanent, especially not these days. You look away for a second and look back, and the world around you has changed, subtly. A TV you swear wasn't there a moment before is yelling at you about something that doesn't exist yet. Your friend turns to you, his shirt changed to a logo you've never seen before, and you think you know what he's going to say - he's going to ask you important questions about the world around him, questions like "How can you best maintain the integrity of...

When we walked into your living room, and our eyes fell on your fine imported Brazilian Eucalyptis Coffee Table With Integrated Aquarium, we couldn't help but notice that the smartphone, tablet, or other in-home electronic device that signifies your wealth and worldliness was left open to Important If True. "How captivating you must be," we thought, as we leafed through the episode and wondered which of life's biggest conundrums you'd be puzzling through with us, what advice you sought and...