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Start the Week - Hay Festival

Start the Week is at the Hay Festival for a discussion about what has made homo sapiens so successful. The historian Yuval Noah Harari looks back a hundred thousand years ago when at least six human species inhabited the earth and explores why only one came to dominate. Science was a key breakthrough and Beth Shapiro pushes at the limits of knowledge with her book on how to clone a mammoth. The writer Colm Tóibín reveals how much he owes past writers in his introduction to the enigmatic American poet, Elizabeth Bishop, while Owen Sheers explores the themes of loss and redemption in his latest novel. Producer: Katy Hickman.

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The Gist - Hoist Up the Liberland Flag

Today on The Gist, our resident vexillologist Ted Kaye explains why it’s so much fun to visit micronation.org and size up the baby flags. For more flag news, we strongly recommend subscribing to the Vexilloid Tabloid, the bimonthly newsletter of the Portland Flag Association. Then, Mike asks Maria Konnikova of the New Yorker to open our eyes about insomnia, the latest in a series we call “Is That Bulls--t?” In the Spiel, Mike finds himself defending Lindsey Graham. Today’s sponsor: QuickBooks. If you work for yourself, try QuickBooks Self-Employed. See what QuickBooks Self-Employed can do for you with a free 30-day trial at tryselfemployed.com/thegist. Join Slate Plus! Members get bonus segments, exclusive member-only podcasts, and more. Sign up for a free trial today at slate.com/gistplus.    

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African Tech Roundup - Bitcoin and the Blockchain: Worth Embracing? + The Week’s Biggest News

There are three prevailing views on bitcoin and the blockchain: 1) that it's a scam, 2) it's one of the most fascinating technological developments of the decade, and 3) it's just another tech fad that's not worth trying to grasp, nevermind fussing over. View number three is probably held by the vast majority of people on the continent. This week, Tefo Mohapi and I (Andile Masuku) will try and establish whether the hype around bitcoin and the various useful applications of the blockchain (which Africa has so far tentatively embraced) is justified. Despite Wall Street's gradual warming to bitcoin, and companies like Kenya's BitPesa building clever service offerings on the back of the bitcoin blockchain, it remains to be seen whether bitcoin will go on to be widely accepted worldwide as a trusted measure of value, and whether the blockchain will be used to platform future technological innovation. We've decided to make featuring listeners' comments a permanent part of the show, and so this week we share comments made in response to last week's debate: "Open Source vs. Proprietary Software: What is Best For Africa?" As always, you can also expect all the week’s most important tech, digital and innovation news: -- Discover why there's an outcry over South Africa's recently-announced aerial drone laws, -- Get details on Automattic's acquisition of WooThemes, -- Learn more about the MTN South Africa workers' strike that saw 2,000 people down tools, and -- Find out which African country Kenya's BitPesa is expanding into. Music Credits: All Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/