Let's Know Things

This week we talk about urban fires, wildland fires, and AQI. We also discuss PM2.5, chemicals, and plumes. Recommended Book: Biological War by Annie Jacobsen Transcript On January 7, 2025, a fire began in the hills above Altadena, California, and surged through a community of homes, businesses, vehicles, and everything inside them. To someone watching the plume from a distance, it was indistingui...

This week we talk about schools, riots, and police violence. We also discuss Le Pen, Macron, and international reporting. Recommended Book: This Is for Everyone by Tim Berners-Lee Transcript On October 17, 2026, hundreds of thousands of people marched in cities across France. Many were protesting the price of fuel, groceries, and other necessities. Others were high-school students, parents, teache...

This week we talk about Adobe, Call of Duty, and Microsoft. We also discuss compilation, machine code, and AI agents. Recommended Book: The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI by Cory Doctorow Transcript In October of 2026, a software developer named Brandon Thomas attracted a lot of attention by releasing a collection of free, open-source programs with names like PhotoCraft, FilmCraft, and V...

This week we talk about polio, malaria, and smallpox. We also discuss vaccines, the CDC, and the HHS. Recommended Book: Remnant Population by Elizabeth Moon Transcript In 2000, the United States declared measles eliminated. That didn’t mean nobody in the country would ever catch it again, it meant the virus was no longer freely spreading within the US. New cases generally arrived with someone who...

This week we talk about Egypt, Eritrea, and Sudan. We also discuss the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, ports, and journalism. Recommended Book: The Infinity Machine by Sebastian Mallaby Transcript In 2018, Ethiopia reopened its embassy in Eritrea. The two countries had fought a border war in the late 1990s and had spent nearly two decades in a tense state that was not quite war, not quite peace....

This week we talk about EU membership, trade deals, and association. We also discuss Australia, Ursula von der Leyen, and Brussels. Recommended Book: Being You by Anil Seth Transcript Just off the coast of Newfoundland, there’s a small group of islands that belongs to France. Saint-Pierre and Miquelon are close enough to Canada that, at their nearest point, the two countries are separated by only...

This week we talk about lobbying, renewables, and the NRA. We also discuss implied threats, midterm elections, and political action committees. Recommended Book: Sunward by William Alexander Transcript For much of the late 20th century and the first few decades of the 21st, one of the most feared interest groups in US politics was the National Rifle Association, the NRA. Its power came from a larg...

This week we talk about AI agents, cyberattacks, and insurance claims. We also discuss OpenAI, Hugging Face, and policy language. Recommended Book: The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester Transcript Two broad categories of cyberattack have become especially visible this year, and only one of them requires a human attacker in the loop to choose the target. In March, hackers linked by the US gover...

This week we talk about money policies, yield curves, and government bonds. We also discuss the Fed, the Treasury Department, and a WWII accord between them. Recommended Book: Paved Paradise by Henry Grabar Transcript In April of 1942, a few months after the United States entered World War 2, the US Treasury Department asked the Federal Reserve to help it borrow a truly staggering amount of money,...

This week we talk about peaker plants, blackouts, and at-home battery backups. We also discuss energy resiliency, solar panels, and hydro. Recommended Book: The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett Transcript Peaking power plants, often just called peaker plants, are power plants that are turned on only during periods of high energy demand. That’s in contrast to a baseload power plant, which oper...

This week we talk about borders, trade wars, and belligerence. We also discuss Trump’s tariffs, inflation, and nationalism. Recommended Book: Vulture Capitalism by Grace Blakeley Transcript The US and Canada share the longest international border in the world, totaling more than 5,500 miles, or nearly 8,900 km. The specific details of this border have changed over the decades, but the current deli...

This week we talk about the liver, viral infections, and the NHS. We also discuss blood scandals, needle usage, and Nobel Prizes. Recommended Book: A World Appears by Michael Pollan Transcript The term “hepatitis” refers to the inflammation of the liver, which can result from all kinds of things, including environmental toxins, the consumption of alcohol, or autoimmune diseases. It can also result...

This week we talk about Evo 2, bacteriophages, and antibiotics. We also discuss AI models, medical innovations, and the Red Army. Recommended Book: The Design of Everyday Things by Donald A. Norman Transcript A bacteriophage, sometimes just called a phage, is a type of virus that only infects bacteria. “Phage” means to devour, and that’s what bacteriophages do—they infect and replicate within bact...

This week we talk about Melilla, hybrid warfare, and migration. We also discuss Morocco, civil conflict, and immigration politics. Recommended Book: Playground by Richard Powers Transcript Ceuta is a Spanish-owned territory located in northwestern Africa, along the top of Morocco. It’s small—about seven square miles—and is unusual because it is a city owned by a European Union member state that is...

This week we talk about Fable, sandboxes, and the Jacobian conjecture. We also discuss counterexamples, X, and ChatGPT. Recommended Book: After the Fall by Edward Ashton Transcript In mathematics, a conjecture is a proposition, something like a guess by someone who knows what they’re talking about, about something believed to be true, but not yet proven in a formal sense. The goal is to then event...

This week we talk about cyclospora, FoodNet, and Taylor Farms. We also discuss iceberg lettuce, Taco Bell, and foodborne pathogens. Recommended Book: Babel by R.F. Kuang Transcript Foodborne pathogens cause about 48 million illnesses and around 3000 deaths in the US alone each year. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is the main agency tasked with keeping those numbers as low as possib...

This week we talk about Russia, Ukraine, and the Warsaw Pact. We also discuss Patriot interceptors, Hungary, and Article 5. Recommended Book: The Alternative by Nick Romeo Transcript The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, was founded in the wake of WWII, in 1949, in order to affirm unity between non-Soviet European nations, Atlantic nations like Greenland and Iceland, and the US and Cana...

This week we talk about Sony, Nintendo, and the Playstation. We also discuss Grand Theft Auto, the 3DO, and digital dark ages. Recommended Book: 3 Days, 9 Months, 27 Years by John Scalzi Transcript The earliest video game consoles that were made to be used in the home, as opposed to being set up in an arcade, were hardwired like their arcade kin. That means rather than being able to play a bunch o...

This week we talk about air conditioners, pressure systems, and heat stress. We also discuss weather memes, climate change, and dirty grids. Recommended Book: Battle of the Linguist Mages by Scotto Moore Transcript An air conditioner, or AC, or maybe air con if you’re in the UK, is a device that moves heat from one location to another. In doing so, it usually dehumidifies the air, as well, so it c...

This week we talk about plug-in power, renewables, and Germany. We also discuss inverters, solar arrays, and microgrids. Recommended Book: Consider This by Chuck Palahnuik Transcript Most climate scientists and knowledgable folks in adjacent fields will tell you that, as a species, we’re way behind where we need to be if we’re going to avoid a whole lot of negative consequences caused by global cl...

This week we talk about LDL, HDL, and cardiovascular issues. We also discuss one-time therapies, statins, and pharmaceutical economics. Recommended Book: Blood by Dr. Jen Gunter Transcript Cholesterol is the most common type of what’s called a sterol, which is a type of steroid, but also structurally technically an alcohol. But functionally, and classified by scientists, cholesterol is a lipid, wh...

This week we talk about initial public offerings, Anthropic, and investment flywheels. We also discuss AI, financial entanglements, and backstops. Recommended Book: Superconvergence by Jamie Metzl Transcript An initial public offering, or IPO, is what happens when a private company goes public and starts selling shares of itself, occasionally to just institutional investors like banks and sovereig...

This week we talk about the Merchant Marine Act, trade routes, and incentives. We also discuss Wesley Jones, foreign competition, and artificial monopolies. Recommended Book: The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi Transcript In 1920, the then-Senator for the state of Washington, Wesley Jones, who was also the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, introduced the Merchant Marine Act as a method b...

This week we talk about the Democratic Republic of the Congo, malaria, and healthcare infrastructure. We also discuss militants, Uganda, and the Bundibugyo virus. Recommended Book: We Should Get Together by Kat Vellos Transcript Ebola, which is more formally called Ebola Virus Disease or Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever, is caused by an infection by a type of RNA virus called an orthoebolavirus. There are...

This week we talk about oceanic surface temperatures, trade winds, and global climate change. We also discuss the Polar Jet Stream, hurricanes, and climate models. Recommended Book: Kleptopia by Tom Burgis Transcript Under normal circumstances, the Pacific Ocean’s average surface temperature, the distribution of heat across its vast expanse, is moderated by trade winds that blow east to west along...