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No Such Thing As A Fish
No Such Thing As A Fish

Little Fish: You've Been Harkin'd

November 16, 2025 • 32m

Summary

⏱️ 7 min read

Overview

The hosts of Little Fish discuss audience-submitted facts covering topics from the International Space Station's urine tank tracker to extinct jobs like 'shake-willy machine' operators, dinosaur timeline surprises, and historical oddities. The episode maintains their signature mix of humor and fascinating trivia while inducting new members into their Friend of the Podcast Hall of Fame.

ISS Piss Tracker and Space Bathroom Challenges

The episode kicks off with a fact about a Blue Sky social media account that tracks how full the International Space Station's urine tank is in real time. This leads to a discussion about space toilets, including historical incidents where the urine disposal system froze, creating a dangerous icicle, and astronauts had to resort to peeing into bags filled with socks for six days. The hosts play a game guessing the current tank percentage.

  • The ISS Piss Tracker on Blue Sky updates regularly showing tank percentage using publicly available NASA data
  • International toilet politics: Americans and Russians sometimes refused to share toilets during conflicts
  • The current urine tank was 38% full at time of recording, which James correctly guessed
  • 1984 mission had frozen urine icicle requiring robot arm removal, followed by six days of using bags with socks
" When stuff on the ground is going wrong, and let's say one toilet is clogged, maybe the Americans won't allow the Russians to use their toilet, or vice versa. "

Oklahoma's Surprising Shoreline Claims

A listener fact claims that landlocked Oklahoma has more shoreline than the east and west coasts of America combined due to its numerous man-made lakes. The hosts investigate this claim and discover it's likely not true when Alaska's extensive coastline is factored in. This leads to a broader discussion about fact-checking and the concept of being 'hearkened'—their term for being thoroughly fact-checked and corrected.

  • Oklahoma claims 55,646 miles of lake shoreline, but Alaska alone has 33,904 miles of coastline
  • Other Oklahoma 'facts' taught in schools—largest salt flats, alabaster deposits, and parakeet farm—are also debunked
  • The concept of getting 'hearkened' is introduced as a rite of passage for fact contributors
" Lauren, you've experienced a rite of passage for anyone involved in QI or no such thing as a fish, which is called a thorough hearkening. And it's never a nice experience, but you do come out of it a wiser person. "

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