WEBVTT

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There's this fact that I love
that I read somewhere once

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that's one of the things

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that's contributed to homosapiens'
success as a species

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is our lack of body hair --

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that our hairlessness --

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our nakedness combined
with our invention of clothing

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gives us the ability to modulate
our body temperature

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and thus be able to survive
in any climate we choose.

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And now we've evolved to the point
where we can survive without clothing.

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And it's more than just utility,

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now it's a communication.

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Everything that we choose
to put on is a narrative,

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a story about where we've been,

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what we're doing,

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who we want to be.

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I was a lonely kid.

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I didn't have an easy time
finding friends to play with

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and I ended up making
a lot of my own play.

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I made a lot of my own toys.

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And it began with ice cream.

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There was a Baskin-Robbins in my hometown,

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and they served ice cream
from behind the counter

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in these giant, five-gallon,
cardboard tubs.

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And someone told me --

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I was eight years old --

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someone told me that when they
were done with those tubs

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they washed them out
and they kept them in the back,

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and if you asked they would give you one.

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It took me a couple of weeks
to work up the courage,

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but I did,

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and they did--

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they gave me one.

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I went home with this beautiful
cardboard tub.

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And I was trying to figure out what
I could do with this exotic material--

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metal ring, top and bottom --

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and I started turning it over in my head,

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and I realized,

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"Wait a minute,

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my head actually fits inside this thing--"

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(Laughter)

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Yeah, I cut a hole out,

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I put some acetate in there

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and I made myself a space helmet.

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(Laughter)

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I needed a place to wear the space helmet,

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so I found a refrigerator box
a couple blocks from home.

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I pushed it home,

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and in my parent's guest room closet,

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I turned it into a spaceship.

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I started with a control panel
out of cardboard;

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I cut a hole for a radar screen

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and put a flashlight
underneath it to light it;

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I put a view screen up which I offset
off the back wall --

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and this is where I thought
I was being really clever --

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without permission,

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I painted the back wall
of the closet black

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and put a star field

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which I lit up with some Christmas
lights I found in the attic,

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and I went on some space missions.

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A couple years later,

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the movie "Jaws" came out.

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And I was way too young to see it,

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but I was caught up in "Jaws" fever like
everyone else in America at the time.

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And there was a store in my town
that had a "Jaws" costume in their window,

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and my mom must have overheard
me talking to someone

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about how awesome I thought
this costume was

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because a couple days before Halloween,

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she blew my freaking mind
by giving me this "Jaws" costume.

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Now, I recognize it's a bit of a trope

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for people of a certain age to complain

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that kids these days have no idea
how good they have it,

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but let me just show you a random sampling

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of entry-level kids' costumes
you can buy online right now --

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and this is the "Jaws" costume
my mom bought for me.

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(Laughter)

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This is a paper-thing shark face

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and a vinyl bib with the poster
of "Jaws" on it.

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(Laughter)

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And I loved it.

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A couple years later,

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my dad took me to a film
called "Excalibur."

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I actually got him to take me to it twice,

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which is no small thing

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because it is a hard, R-rated film.

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But it wasn't the blood
and guts of the boobs

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that made me want to go see it again --

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they helped --

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(Laughter)

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It was the armor.

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The armor in "Excalibur" was
intoxicatingly beautiful to me.

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These were literally knights in shining,
mirror-polished armor,

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and moreover,

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the knights in "Excalibur" wear
their armor everywhere.

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All the time.

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They wear it at dinner,

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they wear it to bed.

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(Laughter)

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I was like, "are they reading my mind?

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I want to wear armor all the time!"

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And so I went back
to my favorite material--

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the gateway drug for making:

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corrugated cardboard.

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And I made myself a suit of armor,

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replete with the neck shields
and a white horse.

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Now that I've over-sold it,

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here's a picture of the armor that I made.

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(Laughter)

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(Applause)

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Now this is only the first
suit of armor I made

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inspired by "Excalibur."

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A couple of years later,

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I convinced my dad to embark on making me
a proper suit of armor.

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Over about a month,

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he graduated me from cardboard
to roofing aluminum called flashing

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and still, one of my all time favorite
attachement materials,

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pop rivets.

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We carefully over that month,

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constructed an articulated suit
of aluminum armor

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with compound curves.

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We drilled holes in the helmet
so that I could breathe

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and I finished just in time
for Halloween and wore it school.

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Now this is the one thing in this talk
that I don't have a slide to show you,

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because no photo exists of this armor.

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I did wear it to school,

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there was a yearbook photographer
patrolling the halls

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but he never found me

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for reasons that are
about to become clear.

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There were things I didn't anticipate

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about wearing a complete suit
of aluminum armor to school.

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(Laughter)

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In third period math,

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I'm was standing in the back of class,

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and I'm standing at the back of class

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because the armor did not
allow me to sit down.

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(Laughter)

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This is the first thing
I didn't anticipate.

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And then my teacher looks at me
sort of concerned

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about half way through the class

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and says, "Are you feeling OK?"

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And I'm thinking, "Are you kidding?

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Am I feeling OK?

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I'm wearing a suit of armor!

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I am having the time of my --"

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And I'm just about to tell her
how great I feel

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when the classroom
starts to list to the left

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and disappear down this long tunnel,

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and then I woke up in the nurse's office.

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(Laughter)

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I had passed out from heat
exhaustion wearing the armor.

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And when I woke up,

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I wasn't embarrassed about having
passed out in front of my class,

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I was wondering,

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"Who took my armor?!

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Where's my armor?!"

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OK, fast-forward a whole bunch of years,

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some colleagues and I get hired

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to make a show for Discovery Channel
called "Mythbusters."

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And over 14 years,

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I learn on the job how to build
experimental methodologies

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and how to tell stories
about them for television.