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Okay, math fans, in case you're just joining us.
This season, Molly and I have been promoted within the Problem Solvers.
We've also changed schools but, most importantly, we're trying to stop a new group of bad guys called the Power Hungry Pogs, who are even more devious than the Troublemaking Trolls.
So far we've discovered.
The pogs use moles to infiltrate different groups, so they can take over from the inside.
And while we haven't been able to uncover any moles just yet, we've got a growing list of suspects.
Hopefully it's just a matter of time until we figure out who the moles are and what the pogs are up to.
On Mysteries About True Histories.
G51.
Let me see.
No G51.
Moles.
Rufus, you got bingo?
Again?
Um, I think he just wants to play fetch.
Again.
Go get it, boy.
Go get it.
So where did we leave it with the pogs?
We left them when we started our self-imposed, very necessary bingo break.
No talking about moles, no talking about pogs, just B-I-N-G-O.
I know, I know.
But I can't get that creepy scene at FAO Schwartz out of my head.
Really?
You thought it was creepy that a bunch of our favorite childhood toys would have an after-hours meeting where they discuss taking over the world?
Who knew?
I know you're being sarcastic, but yes, that was creepy and surreal.
I know, I know.
I've been trying to get the image of Teddy Ruxpin and Tickle Me Elmo laughing maniacally with that disturbing Edison doll out of my head the last two days.
What I want to know is how are the Pogs able to reprogram those toys in order for them to act as their living avatars?
That's a good question.
But it probably wouldn't be too hard to hack into a children's toy.
Well, we're about to find out.
That is still the plan, right?
We become the moles that infiltrate their Pog toy meetings?
More like a coven than a meeting, but yeah.
Okay, so how do we do it?
First, we need a talking toy of our own.
Then we need to program it.
Then we need to get on their network so we can dig around their system completely undetected.
That's what I was afraid you were going to say.
Um, how are we supposed to do all that?
That's why I just wanted to play some bingo.
Hmm.
B4.
Before what?
B4.
As in bingo?
Oh.
Seriously?
You won again?
Let me double check.
B4, I-17, free space, G-51, and O-70.
Bingo!
And less than 41 number calls.
What can I say?
Luck is on my side.
Say that again?
Why is luck on your side?
Because.
Bingo is a game of chance, not a game of skill.
Kinda like guessing a coin flip compared to chess?
Exactly.
Outcomes in games of chance rely heavily on randomness.
A coin flip, dice, or playing cards.
But not all card games are games of chance.
Those professional poker players win all the time.
That can't just be all luck.
True.
There's definitely some skill involved there.
Knowing when to bluff or fold or how not to give away when you have a good or bad hand.
Some games rely on a combination of luck and strategy.
What about sports?
Is that luck or skill?
Both.
Sports obviously requires physical skill, but there's some luck involved too.
Like if the ball bounces up and hits your hand in the penalty box area, that could just be bad luck.
And what about bingo?
Bingo, my friend, involves zero skills of any kind.
Each player gets a card with five columns labeled B-I-N-G and O.
In traditional bingo, there are 75 numbers that can be called.
B1 through 15, I16 through 30, N31 through 45, G46 through 60.
And O61 through 75.
I never realized the columns had number ranges before.
Yep.
And the outcome is totally random.
The caller rolls the ball tumbler and picks out a ball.
The player has no control over the numbers on their card or the number of the ball picked.
So luck was on your side because you've been winning.
Exactly.
In games of chance, probability plays a big role.
Like how if you flip a coin, there's a 50% chance of getting heads or tails.
Technically, there's a 100% chance of getting heads or tails.
There's a 50% chance you get heads and a 50% chance you get tails.
Anyway, I said I was lucky at bingo because mathematicians have determined there is a 50 chance.
One card will get a bingo after 41 numbers are called.
On our bingo break, I got bingo after 30, 28, and 34 number calls.
Whoa, that's way less than a 50% chance.
I know.
That's what I'm saying.
I've been super lucky.
I only got bingo once.
Right.
But it's not just that.
As I recall, you got bingo after 55 number calls.
With that many calls, there's over a 93% chance one card would get a bingo.
Neither of us were particularly lucky that round.
Hopefully battling the pogs is more like chess than bingo.
I'd rather beat them relying on skill than hoping for good luck.
Right.
And here we are, right back to talking about the pogs.
I'm sorry, but they're all I can think about.
Low-key, they're all I can think about too.
Maybe there's another way to infiltrate the pogs.
You mean besides with a talking toy?
Yeah.
Have we detected any more transmissions?
No, I bet they stopped once Aunt Em hacked Charlene's antenna.
Or even earlier, when we tracked that signal to ancient China.
Good point.
What other clues we got?
There's gotta be something.
Hold on.
What about Katrina's emoji message?
The one she sent us when she was working for the Spoon app?
Right.
Let me check my text history.
Here it is.
Rabbit, hole, banana, onion, atom symbol, Belgian flag?
Ugh, what could that possibly mean?
I don't know.
Let's call her and find out.
Hi, Max.
Hey, Katrina.
Question.
Ooh, ooh, okay.
Here it comes.
Here it comes.
I've been waiting for this.
Okay, relax, relax.
Katrina, deep breaths.
Deep breaths.
Go ahead, Max.
Go ahead and what?
Ask me to hang out?
Don't pretend that isn't why you called.
Um... Hey, Katrina.
Molly here.
You're on speaker.
Oh.
Ahem.
Hey, girl!
I wish we were on FaceTime.
Then you could see I'm totally not blushing with embarrassment.
Right.
I totally believe you.
Anywho, what did you want to ask me, Max?
We're calling because we wanted to ask you about that cryptic text you sent us a while back.
The one with all the emojis?
Um, you'll have to be more specific.
Almost all my texts have emojis.
It's the one that said rabbit, hole, banana, onion, atom symbol, flag of Belgium.
You sent it to us right after we got you to spy on your Spoon app employer.
Oh, yeah.
I'm pretty sure someone sent that to me by accident because it was like totally random.
But then I thought, you know, what if it's important?
So I sent it to you.
Gotcha.
But there was more to it than just the emojis.
There was some other weird stuff too.
Oh yeah?
Like what?
I don't remember.
Oh...
But luckily, I took a screenshot of it.
Wait, you have a screenshot of it?
Can you send it to us?
Sure.
If I can find it... Um... Huh, that's weird.
What's weird?
It's gone.
And the original text has been deleted too.
The Pogs must have hacked her phone.
Actually, that's great.
It is?
It is.
Hold on a sec, Katrina.
Listen, we know Katrina was sent the message by accident.
So if they made one mistake, they can make others.
Ah, now I get it.
The pogs aren't perfect.
They've been a step or two ahead of us and the problem solvers and their mole rears may have worked.
But A we figured out that there were no moles.
And B I bet there are other hidden clues in our previous investigations.
And C.
If the Pogs are capable of making mistakes, maybe there is a way for us to infiltrate their system.
But where are we going to find the talking doll?
I've got an idea.
Hey, girl.
We're back.
Just in time.
I was about to hang up.
I don't love being muted.
Sorry.
Question.
You wouldn't happen to have any old talking dolls we could borrow?
Cool, cool, cool.
What do you think?
I think I stopped playing with dolls a long time ago.
Allow us to explain.
This is a Super Talk Barbie we borrowed from Katrina.
It was advertised as saying over 100,000 words and phrases, but now it can only say, Cool!
Hmm.
1 divided by 100,000 equals .00001 times 100% equals .001%.
The poor doll has lost 99.99% of its speech capabilities.
I was just thinking that.
Anyways, this is how we're going to infiltrate the Pogs.
Say what?
We can fill you in when we have more time.
But let's just say we discovered a secret Pog meeting that used talking toys as avatars.
I see.
And you're going to use this reprogrammed Super Talk Barbie to infiltrate their meeting.
Exactly.
Wow, Aunt Em, you are just next level.
So, what do you think?
I like your approach, but I might have a better idea.
Cool.
Alright, the meeting was right down there on the second floor by the giant piano floor mat.
Cool!
Max, get rid of that thing before it gets us caught.
Sorry.
Later, Barb.
Go find Ken.
Cool!
Remind me to grab that before we leave.
Katrina will kill me if I don't return it to her.
Noted.
I'm not seeing or hearing any talking toys.
They're gone.
Does this mean the pogs are on to us?
Only one way to find out.
I fashioned this laptop with a wideband encrypted router.
It'll pick up any Wi-Fi activity in a 100-yard radius.
Wow.
The formula for the circumference of a circle is 2 pi r, or 2 times 314 times the radius, which in this case is 100 yards.
That means we can pick up a Wi-Fi signal within a 628-yard circle. or 100 yards in any direction.
Well done, both of you.
Aha!
I caught a signal.
Now we just have to decrypt it.
But won't there be tons of Wi-Fi signals bouncing around the city?
Not in 1998.
The first Wi-Fi-enabled laptop was launched by Apple in 1999.
But the toys were communicating wirelessly.
Precisely.
The toys might have been in the right place, but their method of communicating was of the wrong time.
My decrypting device has reduced the signal's encryption to a simple math problem.
2 times 3 times 4 times b divided by 4.
That's easy.
2 times 3 equals 6 times 4 equals 24.
But the problem must be solved using only three operations.
2 times 3 times 4 times b divided by 4.
How is that possible when the equation has four operations?
I've got it.
Since the equation is multiplied by 4 and divided by 4, we can cancel out those operations.
The equation would then be reduced to 2 times 3 times b.
Two times three equals six times B equals B6?
Bingo.
I'm on the network.
Rad.
Way to go, Aunt Em.
Whoa.
Look at all those folders.
There are thousands of them and thousands of documents in each folder.
One thousand times one thousand is?
One million.
So there are a million files on this network?
Try millions.
And counting.
Look, the folder trees keep growing at a rate of around one folder.
Every three seconds.
If every folder has 1000 files in it and a new folder is added every three seconds, 60 seconds divided by three seconds equals 20 seconds times 1000 files equals 20000 new files per minute.
Times 60 minutes equals.
1.2 million new files per hour!
Whoa, let's open one.
If a butterfly flaps its wings in NYC, then there's a hurricane in Japan.
Equals increased precipitation, equals potential flooding, equals changes in fish population.
It's like this satellite printout we found in ancient China, but as an equation.
Like the butterfly effect put through a calculator.
Let me run a search for goose honk.
Whoa, there's a ton of hits.
If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, it honks like a goose.
Equals wood feathers equals wild tree chases equals... Oh...
It's just as I feared.
Uh-oh.
It's never a good thing when Aunt Em says that.
These vials are worlds the pogs are modeling through.
Max, what did you say earlier about the butterfly effect?
It's like the butterfly effect put through a calculator.
A prediction calculator.
Bingo!
Which they'll use to stay ahead of anyone trying to stop them from seizing total control of everything.
They may even be able to make one of these model worlds permanently real.
Cool, but also not cool.
There must be a server nearby that's hosting all of these files.
It's gotta be big, too.
Like a giant piano floor mat?
All right, the heartline connection is secure.
Who would have thought the Pogs would hide a server in a giant electric piano floor mat?
I bet there are more hidden servers, too.
Good thought, Molly, because that's exactly what I'm seeing.
Multiple servers across multiple places and times.
But their times and locations are shrouded in a dense forest of encryption.
Well, you know what they say.
If a tree falls in a forest of encryption...
It's because we chopped it down.
It's up to us to find these hidden POG servers.
Bingo!
This episode of Mysteries About True Histories was written by Dan Gold and voiced by Dexter Danger, Mayo Molly Smith, Sheila Morris and Caitlin Gard.
Original music by Brian Suarez.
Our associate producer is Max Kamaski, technical direction and sound design by Josh Hahn.
Mysteries about true histories was created and produced by Adam Tex Davis and Jerry Colbert and is an atomic audio production.
