Hey, I'm Joel Stein. I want you to close your eyes and imagine a pocket watch.

It's moving from side to side. You're getting very sleepy.

Great. Now that I've hypnotized you against your will, you're going to start liking long-form journalism.

Like so much. You're going to listen to a podcast where the host interviews a writer about their long-form story every week.

I'm that host.

Listen to Story of the Week on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of I Heart Radio.

Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name is Robert Lam.

And I'm Joe McCormick, and today's going to be one of our invention episodes.

We're going to be talking about the invention of the electrical telegraph.

And I thought perhaps a good way to kick off this talk would be to discuss a classic thought experiment known as the two generals problem.

Rob, do you ever encounter this before?

I don't think I'd really seem to spelled out, so this one was a lot of fun.

So this is used in computer science classes and stuff these days.

Normally, it has a kind of generic format.

Though to give it a little extra flair, it typically takes place in an archaic low technology setting.

So I'm going to give this generic problem a dark crystal twist.

Oh, we're going to throw. I like it.

Yeah, yeah. Okay.

So you got two gulfling armies, and they are set to attack the skeksis stronghold in the castle of the crystal.

And the two armies are stationed on opposite sides of the valley where the stronghold lies.

The Ginn world, that would be the Balim Valley.

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