Fred Brooks: Why Adding People Makes Late Projects Later
In the 1970s, one man proved that the maddening experience of a late project slowing down after you add more people isn't bad luck. It's an inescapable law of human nature, and it still rules software...
23 Juni 20min
Cedric the Entertainer: Claims Adjuster to Comedy Empire
A State Farm claims adjuster and substitute teacher gets a cease-and-desist from a cereal company, pins a pro wrestler on WWE Raw, and makes First Lady Laura Bush call him the funniest person she's ev...
23 Juni 19min
Patton Oswalt: The Geek Comedian and the Golden State Killer
Named after a fierce World War II general, he became a comedian who voiced a cartoon rat and obsessed over obscure 1970s movies. Then he ended up playing a pivotal role in the real-life hunt for one o...
23 Juni 19min
The Name Alfred: One Word's Wild Journey Across History
A ninth-century Anglo-Saxon king, an Australian cyclone, a lead-cooled nuclear reactor, and an Eminem album walk into a Wikipedia page. The surprising thread connecting them all? A single, ubiquitous ...
23 Juni 18min
Edward Elgar: The Outsider Behind Pomp and Circumstance
Pomp and Circumstance sounds like the pinnacle of class-conscious Imperial Britain, and its mustachioed composer looks like the ultimate establishment insider. The truth is the opposite: Edward Elgar ...
23 Juni 20min
Stephen Fry: From Youth Detention to Knight of the Realm
He sounds like he was born sipping Earl Grey, the quintessential erudite British gentleman whose voice narrates Harry Potter. Yet that same polished national treasure was repeatedly expelled from scho...
23 Juni 21min
Rudyard Kipling: Jungle Book Genius and Imperial Contradiction
How does the man who gave us the talking animals of The Jungle Book also write one of the most unapologetic anthems of British imperialism? The answer lies in a life perpetually torn between two world...
23 Juni 23min
Earl Warren: From Internment Architect to Civil Rights Icon
How can one man both orchestrate the internment of over 100,000 Japanese Americans and become the Supreme Court justice who struck down school segregation and created Miranda rights? Impossibly, Earl ...
23 Juni 19min
