Today on Talk Python: What really happens when your data work outgrows your laptop. Matthew Rocklin, creator of Dask and cofounder of Coiled, and Nat Tabris a staff software engineer at Coiled join me to unpack the messy truth of cloud-scale Python. During the episode we actually spin up a 1,000 core cluster from a notebook, twice! We also discuss picking between pandas and Polars, when GPUs help, and how to avoid surprise bills. Real lessons, real tradeoffs, shared by people who have built this stuff. Stick around.
Today’s international system is made up of states: Territorial entities with defined borders, with exclusive control within those borders, diplomatic recognition by other states outside of them and usually (though not always) tied to some idea of the “nation.”
But how many states have existed throughout history, such as during the nineteenth century? Some early counts put the number at just a few dozen–a measure that international relations professors Charles R. Butcher and Ryan D. Griffiths thought was far too low, missing polities throughout the non-Western world. Together, they put together their own count of independent states in the nineteenth century, as published in their latest workBefore Colonization: Non-Western States and Systems in the Nineteenth Century (Columbia UP, 2025).
Charles joins us today to talk about his work. He is a professor in the Department of Sociology and Political Science at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. His research focuses on the legacies of historical states and state systems, democratization, and civil resistance.
The investigation into the assassination of Charlie Kirk has raised a lot of questions – not just about the alleged shooter, but about the investigation itself. And especially about the person at the head of the bureau tasked with helping to find and capture suspects in acts of violence not just in the Kirk case, but across the country: FBI Director Kash Patel. His performance thus far has been, well, questionable. And he's tussling with Democrats who call him on it. To learn more about the FBI, Kash Patel, and how the Bureau is supposed to work, I spoke to Andrew McCabe, the FBI's former deputy director.
And in headlines, the Federal Reserve cut interest rates amid some less-than-stellar employment and inflation numbers, the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention testified to the Senate about her firing by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and the U.K. rolls out the red carpet for President Trump.
The news to know for Thursday, September 18, 2025!
We’ll tell you why late-night host Jimmy Kimmel has been pulled off the air indefinitely—and why it’s causing such a backlash.
Also, a new turning point for the Federal Reserve: the latest interest rate cut, and what the Fed says about the economy as a whole.
Plus: how the U.S. is changing the citizenship test, what the data says about the state of marriage in the U.S., and which toys could soon be recognized as Hall of Famers.
Those stories and even more news to know in about 10 minutes!
Join us every Mon-Fri for more daily news roundups!
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Back-to-school supplies are getting more expensive … so why are parents and teachers at public schools expected to foot the bill? Today on the show: An economist explains how the cost of school supplies fits into the larger history of public school funding, and what one school district is doing differently.
Arguably, no high school reading list is complete without one of Toni Morrison’s books. In today’s episode, we look back at a 2004 conversation between the author and NPR’s Renee Montagne, who visited Morrison to talk about a new paperback re-release of five of her novels. The interview focuses on Morrison’s perspective on hauntings, apparitions and ghosts, including the way Morrison’s late father helped her complete Song of Solomon.
To listen to Book of the Day sponsor-free and support NPR's book coverage, sign up for Book of the Day+ at plus.npr.org/bookoftheday
Paris Marx is joined by Caroline Haskins to discuss what Palantir actually does and the growing influence it has within the US government and many large corporations.
Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.
The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Kyla Hewson.
Paris mentioned a connection between Paypal and the founding of Palantir; a founding story for Palantir is that the concept for the company grew from the desire to use the fraud-detection software designed for PayPal to build counterterrorism software.
Donald Trump has been calling for the Fed to cut rates to bolster the economy, and yesterday, they announced they would. The bad news is that’s because the economy is going to need a lot more bolstering.
Guest: Justin Wolfers, economist and professor at the University of Michigan
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Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther.