Summary
Overview
In this episode of Lateral, Tom Scott hosts three Australian guests—Michelle Wong from Lab Muffin Beauty Science and Bill Sunderland and Dani Seller from Escape This Podcast—as they tackle lateral thinking puzzles involving Dutch cheese labels, knitted sushi patterns, papal conclaves, AI training failures, corporate terms and conditions, and Soviet diplomatic wit.
Dutch Cheese Labeling System
The episode opens with a question about a Dutch supermarket's creative cheese labeling system. The puzzle involves animals saying different greetings in various languages, accompanied by black circles. After exploring connections between cheese types, countries of origin, and aging processes, the team discovers that Dutch supermarket Picnic uses animals to indicate cheese type, languages for country of origin, and dots to show cheese strength or age.
- Dutch supermarket Picnic labels cheeses with animals (goat, sheep, cow), language greetings (ciao, hola, bonjour), and dots indicating strength
- The animal indicates the type of cheese, the language indicates country of origin, and dots show the strength or age
- Most common animal on these labels is the cow
" I really like cheese. And you have listed most of the animals whose cheese I have eaten. "
Sushi Roll Knitting Pattern
Michelle presents a clever question about a scarf knitting pattern with specific color percentages that can't be appreciated while worn. The pattern uses 20% red, 60% white, and 20% black, with the design only visible when the scarf is rolled up. After considering various possibilities from Mario levels to the Bayeux Tapestry, the team realizes it creates a sushi roll cross-section when coiled, with salmon in the center, rice making up most of the volume, and seaweed on the outside.
- The scarf pattern uses 20% red, 60% white, and 20% black, designed to look like a sushi roll when rolled up
- Michelle actually created a physical example of this knitting pattern
- The percentages reflect the visual appearance when rolled: 20% seaweed on outside appears widest due to circumference, while 20% salmon in center appears smallest
" I was like, yeah, actually, I designed one a while back. "
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