Episodes
Man Without a Country (1 of 3)
Man Without a Country (1 of 3) What happens when you curse your own country? In this version of the classic Americana tale your host is sentenced to live...
Stages on Life’s Way
Stages On Life’s Way A few years ago your host took a pilgrimage to Copenhagen to walk the streets the great Dane Søren Kierkegaard once walked. He wanted to understand the...
A Better Tomorrow
A Better Tomorrow This week we examine the legacy of The Work of Art in the Age of Technological Reproducibility by Walter Benjamin. Media Theorist and Benjamin scholar (and translator)...
The Bootlickers
Andrew Rubin opens up his Archives of Authority to tell us the story of how George Orwell’s Animal Farm and 1984 became global phenomenons. Melissa Gira Grant tells us about her new book Playing the Whore and the complicated relationship between sex workers, Feminists, Journalists, and the Police. And your host turns to ToE correspondent Peter Choyce for advice on how to fight his bike ticket in traffic court.
Prêt-à-Portable
Technology consultant Sarah Slocum loves social media and her Google Glass, she wears them everywhere. But when she walked into Molotov’s, a bar on Haight Street in San Francisco, she discovered that not everyone shares her love for wearable gadgets. Also, your host makes his annual pilgrimage to SXSWi and ends up designing wearables at a surreal Hack Day. We also hear from Shingy, AOL’s Digital Prophet. He says wearables will allow us to have it both ways: we can be both digital and human.
When You’re Lonely, Life is Very Long
When you’re lonely, life is very long After moving to New York alone, writer Olivia Laing discovered the truth about loneliness. She says it is a gift. Eric Klinenberg explains...
F is for Fake
F is for Fake To Bot or Not? That’s the big question for Data Scientist Gilad Lotan. His research suggests we may be damaging our online reputations if we choose not to...
Artifacts (2 of 2)
Artifacts (2 of 2) Social Media theorist Nathan Jurgenson wants us to understand what is truly revolutionary about ephemeral photographs and platforms like Snapchat, Fred Ritchin says we are...
Artifacts (1 of 2)
Artifacts (1 of 2) Photographer Robert Burley takes pictures of the end of analog for his book The Disappearance Of Darkness. Christine Frohnert explains how conservators must care for...
Not Soon Enough
Not Soon Enough This week your host tries to break through to the other side using the art of John Singer Sargent as a… jumping off point. Also we...
Waiting In Line
Waiting In Line About a year ago I travelled across America for the BBC. I visited Airports, Amusement parks, Highways and Community Colleges in order to understand how the...
Out Of The Office
Out Of The Office Programmer David Heinemeier Hansson tells us about his Out Of Office experience, David is a partner at 37signals and a co-author (with Jason Fried) of...
Admissions Of Defeat
Admissions Of Defeat We check in with a few of our TOE regulars: Peter Choyce has is one of my oldest friends and a listener favorite, but he has...
Red, White, Blue & Orange
Red, White, Blue & Orange A torture expert records an imaginary criterion commentary track for the torture scenes in Zero Dark Thirty. We learn about Umarov Muhibullah, one of...
The Clouds (part 3 of 3)
The Clouds (3 of 3) Our series concludes with some revelations. Metahaven uses the story of Wikileaks to show us the infrastructure of the cloud and its super-jurisdictional powers....
The Clouds (part 2 of 3)
The Clouds (2 of 3) Benjamen Walker · The Clouds (2 of 3) We continue our journey to the center of the cloud, by way of the earth: Rare...
The Clouds (part 1 of 3)
The Clouds (1 of 3) Twitter employee #7 tells us what happened when Justin Bieber joined twitter in 2009. An Amazon Data scientist, explains how the cloud is changing...
Man Without a Country (2 of 3)
What happens when you curse your own country? In this version of the classic Americana tale your host is sentenced to live out the rest of his days in...