Trompe L'oeil
Today, we have three stories about designs meant to fool you. Camouflage meant to fool U-boats. Highways designed to fool your brain into going way faster than it should want to. And impeccably made f...
15 Okt 202432min
Brilliantly Boring
In this bonus episode, Roman unearths the surprising story behind the 99% Invisible's name and delves into the unnoticed brilliance of everyday design—from the origins of reinforced concrete to the ar...
11 Okt 202427min
Christiania
In the heart of Copenhagen, a former military base transformed into Christiania, a self-proclaimed anarchist commune where residents built a new way of living, free from traditional rules. But as the ...
8 Okt 202440min
The Infernal Machine
The unexpected story of how Alfred Nobel’s invention of dynamite—designed to build the world—was co-opted by anarchists to bring about its destruction. From revolutionizing infrastructure to arming po...
1 Okt 202428min
Cue the Sun!
What started as Emily Nussbaum’s “guilty pleasure” of watching Big Brother became a deeper dive into the world of reality TV, leading to her book, Cue the Sun: The Invention of Reality TV. From its ea...
24 Sep 202435min
The Power Broker #9: Majora Carter
This is the ninth official episode, breaking down the 1974 Pulitzer Prize winning book, The Power Broker by our hero Robert Caro. This week, Roman Mars and Elliott Kalan sit down with Majora Carter, a...
20 Sep 20242h 32min
Planet Money: Zombie 2nd Mortgages
Karen MacDonough had paid her mortgage for years, raised her family, and lived a quiet life in her Quincy, Massachusetts home—until one day, a group of strangers appeared on her lawn, claiming her hou...
17 Sep 202433min
Medellin, Revisited
Once considered the most dangerous city in the world due to drug cartel violence, by the early 2000s Medellin had reinvented itself. But gentrification is allowing criminal gangs to reap large profits...
10 Sep 202433min
