History of Technology
293 episodes · Page 10 of 13
#2521: Are We Really Worse Off Than Our Ancestors?
A look at 700 years of wages, housing costs, and what "purchasing power" actually means today.
#2454: Ireland's Neutrality: Myth or Reality?
Ireland claims military neutrality but pursues aggressive diplomatic actions. Can a nearly defenseless country truly stay neutral?
#2450: The Time Zone King and the Database That Runs the World
How a missed train led to global time zones, why DST exists for bug hunting, and the volunteer database that keeps the internet on time.
#2378: The Cooperative vs. Commercial Origins of Global News
From telegraphs to RSS feeds, discover how global news wires like Reuters and AP shaped factual reporting worldwide.
#2370: Morse Code and Telegrams: The Tech That Won’t Die
Morse code and telegrams, relics of the past? Think again. Discover where these technologies still thrive and why they refuse to fade away.
#2344: The Gold Standard Myth
Was money ever really "backed" by gold? A deep dive into the unstable history of the gold standard and what actually gives money its value.
#2322: How Licensing Laws Invented a Takeaway
How Ireland’s iconic "three in one" dish became the ultimate post-pub comfort food.
#2318: The Accidental Invention of Civilization's Fuel
How did a wild berry transform into the world’s favorite beverage? Dive into coffee’s fascinating evolution from food to ritual to global phenomenon.
#2275: From Catalogs to TikTok: The Psychology of Remote Shopping
Explore how remote shopping, from mail-order catalogs to TikTok Shop, taps into the same psychological impulses across eras.
#2267: The 50-Year Reign of Nine-to-Five
The nine-to-five workday feels eternal, but its dominance as the default for office workers is a surprisingly brief historical blip. We trace its f...
#2266: Hunter-Gatherers with Smartphones
The last hunter-gatherers aren't living in the Stone Age. They're using GPS and phones to coordinate hunts while fiercely protecting their ancient ...
#2264: The Pitcairn Class: Travel to the Edge of the Map
What drives people to seek out places like Pitcairn Island, famous only for being famously inaccessible? We explore the reality of the world's most...
#2260: The Papier-Mâché Crab and the Cult Film
How did a bizarre, technically disastrous 1972 Israeli film flop, vanish, and then become a beloved midnight movie phenomenon? We dissect the legen...
#2252: Why Lithium-Ion Won (And What's Next)
How the physics of lithium made it the king of batteries, and the engineering breakthroughs—from silicon anodes to solid-state cells—that are pushi...
#2236: Metal at Forty Thousand Feet
Could 1903 metallurgy have built a plane to fly at 40,000 feet? The answer reveals how materials science, not aerodynamics, was aviation's deepest ...
#2162: When Knowledge Work Stops Being Safe
The knowledge economy promised safety from automation. Then AI arrived. Here's how we got here—and why the disruption this time is different.
#2082: When Justice Becomes a Formula
Israel's proposed mandatory death penalty for terrorists has deep historical roots, from Hammurabi's Code to the Bloody Code.
#2081: How Many Bosses Between You and a Four-Star General?
We break down the Army’s “brass” pyramid: from a private’s foxhole to the four-star generals in the Pentagon.
#2077: Why Big Armies Hate Their Best Soldiers
From WWII's fish oil raids to modern Green Beret teams, discover the real mechanics of elite military units.
#2076: Is Pure NLP Dead? The Hidden Scaffolding of AI
Modern AI didn't appear from nowhere. Discover how decades of linguistic rules and statistical models built the foundation for today's LLMs.
#1982: The Impossible Task of Controlling a Living Language
How a government board tries to standardize Hebrew while the public invents words on the fly.
#1980: Why Ancient History Is So Violent: The "Juicy Bits" Bias
We think the ancient world was a non-stop slasher flick, but is that because the boring, peaceful parts just didn’t survive?
#1979: When Marketing Swallows the Tech
Is AI the same as Machine Learning? We break down the nested hierarchy of artificial intelligence, from symbolic logic to neural networks.
#1970: How 3,300-Year-Old Sailors Built the Alphabet
The letters on your screen trace back to an ancient maritime empire. Discover how Phoenician traders engineered the first alphabet.