Month: December 2016

Posted on

50 Things That Made the Modern Economy - Lightbulb

Once too precious to use, now too cheap to notice – the significance of the lightbulb is profound. Imagine a hard week’s work gathering and chopping wood, ten hours a day for six days. Those 60 hours of work would produce light equivalent to one modern bulb shining for just 54 minutes. The invention of tallow candles made life a little easier. If you spent a whole week making them – unpleasant work – you would have enough to burn one for two hours and twenty minutes every evening for a year. Every subsequent technology was expensive, and labour-intensive. And none produced a strong, steady light. Then, as Tim Harford explains, Thomas Edison came along with the lightbulb and changed everything, turning our economy into one where we can work whenever we want to. Producer: Ben Crighton Editors: Richard Knight and Richard Vadon (Photo: Electric lightbulb, Credit: Science photo library)
Posted on

Amicus With Dahlia Lithwick | Law, justice, and the courts - Corruption in the White House

“[N]o person holding any office of profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state.” These words, from Article I of the U.S. Constitution, make it unambiguously clear to many legal scholars that Donald Trump will be committing an impeachable offense by not relinquishing an ownership stake in his multiple companies before Jan 20.  Zephyr Teachout is among those scholars, and joins us to explain why corruption in the presidency was such anathema to the nation’s founders.

In the remainder of today’s episode, we share a few highlights from a recent symposium about the current state of free speech on campus. The event was organized by the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression. You can watch videos of the entire two-day event here.

Transcripts of Amicus are available to Slate Plus members. Consider signing up today! Members get bonus segments, exclusive member-only podcasts, and more. Sign up for a free trial here.

Amicus is brought to you by The Great Courses Plus, a video learning service with a large library of lectures all taught by award-winning professors. Get a free month of unlimited access when you sign up at TheGreatCoursesPlus.com/amicus.

And by Casper, an online retailer of premium mattresses for a fraction of the price. Get 50 dollars toward any mattress purchase by going to Casper.com/amicus and using the promo code Amicus.

Please let us know what you think of Amicus. Our email is amicus@slate.com. Follow us on Facebook here. Podcast production by Tony Field.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Posted on

African Tech Roundup - Talking Venture Capital With Eline Blaauboer of TBL Mirror Fund and Safaricom Spark Venture Fund

This week’s African Tech Conversations sneak-peek is drawn from an in-depth chat Andile Masuku had with Eline Blaauboer, Managing Partner at both TBL Mirror Fund and Safaricom Spark Venture Fund. Eline’s worked in the venture capital and private equity sector in both Europe and Africa for last 14 years— gaining loads of experience with new investments and portfolio management, negotiation and structuring of investment rounds and deal flow generation. Her latest undertaking is something called 'Africa Tech Ventures' - a venture fund focussed on investing in and accelerating the growth of disruptive tech-enabled start-ups and businesses in Sub-Saharan Africa. Eline and her team at Africa Tech Ventures are currently in the process of fundraising and on the look-out for investors interested in collaborating with them. Music Credits: Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution
Posted on

Stuff They Don't Want You To Know - The Mystery of the Cagots

For centuries communities in France and Spain practiced a brutal, widely-accepted system of discrimination against a group of families and individuals known as Cagots -- but who were these people? Where did they come from, and where are they now?

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

They don't want you to read our book.: https://static.macmillan.com/static/fib/stuff-you-should-read/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

array(3) { [0]=> string(150) "https://www.omnycontent.com/d/programs/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/2e824128-fbd5-4c9e-9a57-ae2f0056b0c4/image.jpg?t=1749831085&size=Large" [1]=> string(10) "image/jpeg" [2]=> int(0) }