Month: February 2021

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Everything Everywhere Daily - The Elevator

Some of the things we use every day were invented in the distant past. Other things were invented quite recently. However, there is a category of inventions that have been known forever, but no one ever had any practical use for it until recently. Learn more about the elevator, and how it helped create the modern world, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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Short Wave - BONUS: Throughline — Octavia Butler: Visionary Fiction‬

To round out our celebration of Black History Month, we're bringing you a special episode featuring acclaimed science fiction writer Octavia Butler from our friends at NPR's history podcast Throughline.

Octavia Butler's alternate realities and 'speculative fiction' reveal striking, and often devastating parallels to the world we live in today. She was a deep observer of the human condition, perplexed and inspired by our propensity towards self-destruction. Butler was also fascinated by the cyclical nature of history, and often looked to the past when writing about the future. Along with her warnings is her message of hope — a hope conjured by centuries of survival and persistence. For every society that perished in her books, came a story of rebuilding, of repair.

Read Throughline's article about Octavia Butler.

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The NewsWorthy - Special Edition: Impact of Virtual School

Today we’re talking about the impact of virtual schooling on students.

We discuss why (and how much) some children are falling behind, what schools have to consider other than safety when returning to in-person learning, and some practical solutions, including what parents can do right now.   

This episode is brought to you by BLUblox.com/newsworthy and Fitbod.me/newsworthy

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This Machine Kills - 45. Platform’s Republic of Facebook (patreon teaser)

We riff on the archetype of the tech guy who can’t bear his California dream being soured by the existence of other people struggling to get by in a city his industry has immiserated. Then dive into the formation of Facebook’s Oversight Board—their very own so-called Supreme Court—and how their cosplaying as Founding Fathers reveals larger lessons for shifts underway in corporate vs. state sovereignty. Some stuff we reference: • California Exit Interview: Fleeing $17 Salads and 'General Lawlessness' by Joe Garofoli: https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/California-Exit-Interview-Fleeing-17-salads-and-15947926.php • Inside the Making of Facebook’s Supreme Court by Kate Klonick: https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/inside-the-making-of-facebooks-supreme-court • Liberalism is Dead by Vicky Osterweil: https://thenewinquiry.com/liberalism-is-dead/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl).
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More or Less: Behind the Stats - Covid 19 death count: which countries are faring worst?

Are different countries counting deaths from Covid 19 in the same way? Tim Harford finds out if we can trust international comparisons with the data available.

We discover Peru currently has the most excess deaths per capita over the course of the pandemic, while Belgium has the highest Covid death count per capita.

Tim speaks to Hannah Ritchie from Our World in Data and John Burn Murdoch, senior data visualisation journalist at the Financial Times.

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Reset with Sasha-Ann Simons - WBEZ’s Weekly News Roundup

Governor JB Pritzker lays out his budget plan and promises no tax hikes. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot is in hot water with the city’s inspector general. Plus, a political career spanning half a century is cut short by the fallout from a federal bribery scandal. Reset breaks down the week’s top stories in our Friday News Roundup with host Sasha-Ann Simons. For more Reset interviews, subscribe to this podcast and please leave us a rating. That helps other listeners find us For more about the program, go to the WBEZ website or follow us on Twitter at @WBEZreset.
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Consider This from NPR - Memorializing The Deaths Of More Than 500,000 Americans Lost To COVID-19

The U.S. death toll from COVID-19 is on track to pass a number next week that once seemed unthinkable: Half a million people in this country dead from the coronavirus.

And while the pandemic isn't over yet, and the death toll keeps climbing, artists in every medium have already been thinking about how our country will pay tribute to those we lost.

Poets, muralists, and architects all have visions of what a COVID-19 memorial could be. Many of these ideas are about more than just honoring those we've lost to the pandemic. Artists are also thinking about the conditions in society that brought us here.

Tracy K. Smith, a former U.S. poet laureate, has already written one poem honoring transit workers in New York who died of the disease. Smith says she wants to see a COVID-19 memorial that has a broader mission, that it needs to invite people in to bridge a divide.

Paul Farber runs Monument Lab, an organization that works with cities and states that want to build new monuments. He says he wants to see a COVID-19 monument that is collective experience and evolves over time. He also wants it to serve as a bridge to understanding.

In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment that will help you make sense of what's going on in your community.

Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

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