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No Such Thing As Dwayne Johnson's Hare

December 11, 2025·55 min·5 clips

China warps every digital map by 50 to 500 meters in random directions to confuse outsiders.

This episode of No Such Thing As A Fish features hosts Dan Schreiber, James Harkin, and Andy Murray, joined by special guest Adam Chase from the travel competition show Jet Lag: The Game. The conversation centers on a collection of unusual facts and stories related to mapping, transportation, and treasure hunts. Adam Chase explains that every digital map of China is intentionally inaccurate due to a state-mandated coordinate system called GCJ-02, which randomly shifts locations by 50 to 500 meters. Satellite imagery in China is also warped to match this incorrect data, making banks appear in rivers. The hosts discuss Vozrozhdeniya Island, a former Soviet bioweapons testing site in the Aral Sea that was kept off maps and has since dried up. They mention how the fitness app Strava inadvertently revealed the layouts of secret U.S. military bases through soldiers' running routes. In Athens, Google Earth exposed 16,974 undeclared swimming pools, far more than the 324 that were officially registered for tax purposes. A surprising insight is that China's map distortion is officially for national defense and economic development, not just territorial disputes. The group finds it amusing that Google Maps in China displays a consistently wrong reality rather than a mismatch between data and satellite images. They note the irony of Germany's Deutsche Bahn trains, which are famously unreliable despite the national stereotype of efficiency, with only about 60% of high-speed trains arriving on time. Adam Chase shares that Deutsche Bahn becomes a unpredictable "fourth competitor" in their games set in Germany. The tone is conversational, humorous, and digressive, with the hosts and guest bouncing between topics with enthusiastic camaraderie. Listeners who enjoy quirky trivia, behind-the-scenes stories about travel shows, and lighthearted discussions of historical oddities will love this episode. Those seeking a tightly structured, single-topic narrative might find the rapid topic shifts less engaging.

As heard by us

A rail-heavy episode that turns Jetlag fandom into a stream of strange, specific transport facts.

The episode opens on a clear burst of enthusiasm for Adam Chase from Jetlag the Game, and that energy gives it a quick, easy start. Jetlag is framed as a world-spanning game built around trains, planes, infrastructure, and getting there first, so the conversation moves straight…

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Why you'd press play

You want train trivia wrapped around a guest the hosts are plainly excited to have on.

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