A new series from a founding host of Reply All. Crypto Island explores the frontiers of a strange new world. (This series is best experienced by beginning at episode one).
Why is it so hard to tax billionaires? (Part 2)
We reveal the one weird trick some billionaires use to pay less in federal income taxes than you do. And we explain the consequences faced by the person who leaked the tax returns of billionaires like Jeff Bezos and Taylor Swift, thereby enraging some of the most powerful people in our country.
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10/18/2024 • 45 minutes, 47 seconds
Why is it so hard to tax billionaires? (Part 1)
A rogue IRS contractor leaks the private tax returns of the country’s wealthiest citizens to a reporter. That reporter, ProPublica’s Jesse Eisinger, learns that some of our billionaires are paying as little as zero dollars in federal income taxes. The story of how this country came up with an income tax in the first place, and how the wealthiest discovered an opt-out strategy.
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10/18/2024 • 52 minutes, 24 seconds
Death, Sex & Money x Search Engine
This week, we're sharing an episode of a show we love, Death, Sex & Money. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do. We'll be back with two new episodes of our own next Friday.
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10/10/2024 • 51 minutes, 29 seconds
The Mystery of the Vape Shop Kratom
This week we have for you ... not a whodunnit, but a what did I do? A listener tries a substance he doesn’t know much about and not long after, his life begins to change. Afterwards, he wonders — what was that, and why was it so easy to get? Search Engine investigates.
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10/4/2024 • 1 hour, 7 minutes, 1 second
Is everyone pretending to understand inflation (or just me)?
The single issue that might decide the upcoming presidential election also happens to be: very confusing. Political economist Mark Blyth helps us understand: how inflation starts, how inflation is stopped, and shares his theory about why the powers-that-be may be just as confused about inflation as we are.
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9/20/2024 • 56 minutes, 9 seconds
A stubborn lunatic’s guide to making great art
25 years ago, The Sopranos, the best television show ever created, premiered. This week, a new documentary called Wise Guy asks the question: how did a show considered so risky & uncommercial even get made? We’re interviewing Wise Guy director Alex Gibney about that question, and about how stubborn lunatics like him and David Chase got to make the projects they wanted to make.
Incognito Mode, our ad-free, no-rerun, bonus episode feed.
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9/13/2024 • 59 minutes, 27 seconds
Can I microdose veganism?
If you care about animals, but don't want to stop eating them... what's the least you could do while doing the most good? That question, posed to The Atlantic's Annie Lowrey, leads us to a pair of true crime stories about animals. Turkeys plummeting wildly from the sky and a private investigation involving a small brown cow.
Links to Annie Lowrey's Reporting
Tossing a Bird That Does Not Fly Out of a Plane
The Truth About Organic Milk
Links to Live Events
Brooklyn Live Event with Freakonomics - Thursday, September 26th
Amsterdam Live Event with Podimo - Thursday, October 3rd
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9/6/2024 • 57 minutes, 25 seconds
What's the best phone to do crimes on?
For years, the must-have phone for the discerning drug trafficker or hitman was a brand you may not have heard of: AN0M. Reporter Joseph Cox tells us the story of the AN0M phone, its sudden rise and shocking fall, and the shadowy group behind its invention.
Joseph's new book: Dark Wire.
Incognito Mode, our ad-free, no-rerun, bonus episode feed.
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8/16/2024 • 1 hour, 4 minutes, 55 seconds
Is there a sane way to follow this election?
We are in an eighty-eight day sprint to the Presidential election. How would you follow this story if you wanted to actually understand something, instead of, like me, just feeling very anxious several times a day? We talk to Ezra Klein about how he follows elections and his own strange role in this election cycle.
If you'd like to check out some of Ezra's election coverage this year, here are some good places to start.
Democrats Have a Better Option than Biden (February, 2024)
Are Democrats Right to Unite Around Kamala Harris? (July, 2024)
Is Tim Walz the Midwestern Dad Democrats Need? (August, 2024)
And if you'd like ad-free episodes of Search Engine, and bonus episodes, head to searchengine.show!
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8/9/2024 • 1 hour, 4 minutes, 5 seconds
The End
A trip to Greenland, a chance encounter with Coolio, and the end of the world. (This summer we’re publishing some of our favorite episodes from our previous series, Crypto Island.)
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8/2/2024 • 56 minutes, 6 seconds
The Kidnapping of Ape #8398
An art heist in the crypto world plunges us headfirst into another mystery — why did so many celebrities suddenly start selling us on NFTs last year? (This summer we’re publishing some of our favorite episodes from our previous series, Crypto Island.)
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7/26/2024 • 41 minutes, 9 seconds
Genesis
This week: Bitcoin. We trace it from its humble origins in a .PDF to the movement it has spawned, all over three days at an enormous Bitcoin conference in Miami. (This summer we’re publishing some of our favorite episodes from our previous series, Crypto Island.)
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7/19/2024 • 1 hour, 8 minutes, 50 seconds
The Bidding War
A story about a strange auction for perhaps the most valuable piece of paper in America. This summer we’re publishing some of our favorite episodes from our previous series, Crypto Island.
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7/12/2024 • 51 minutes, 18 seconds
Why didn’t Chris and Dan get into Berghain? (Part 2)
We travel to Germany to trace techno's history from Detroit to Berlin. The story of how, after the Wall fell, Berlin exorcised its brutal past with a very strange, decade-long party. A mission that takes us all the way to the gates of Berghain.
Music Credits: Original composition in this episode by Armen Bazarian. Additional Tracks: Game One - Infiniti, Dead Man Watches The Clock - Marcel Dettmann & Ben Klock, The Call - Marcel Dettmann & Norman Nodge, Quicksand - Marcel Dettmann. Full playlist here.
Sven von Thüle: https://soundcloud.com/svt // Der Klang der Familie
Gesine Kühne: https://soundcloud.com/wannadosomething
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6/26/2024 • 1 hour, 13 minutes, 34 seconds
Why didn’t Chris and Dan get into Berghain? (Part 1)
Two Americans embark on a quest: fly across an ocean to try to get into the most exclusive nightclub in the world – Berghain. A German techno palace where the line outside can last 8 hours, and the bouncers are merciless in their judgments. The club does not explain how it makes its decisions about who can enter, but one foolish podcaster will try to explain anyway.
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6/21/2024 • 55 minutes, 18 seconds
What does it feel like to believe in God?
This week, we try to understand an experience that 74% of Americans routinely report having. The first of many conversations (perhaps?). This one, an interview with Zvika Krieger.
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6/14/2024 • 1 hour, 7 minutes, 6 seconds
How much glue should you put in your pizza?
An internet breaking news story. As we told you last week, Google has begun offering AI-generated answers to search questions. But some answers, it turns out, are strange. Users were told, for instance, that glue was an appropriate ingredient for homemade pizza. We talk to reporter Katie Notopolous, who baked and ate her own homemade glue pizza.
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5/31/2024 • 45 minutes, 44 seconds
How do we survive the media apocalypse? (Part 2)
Last week, Google announced a fundamental change to how the site will work, which will likely have dire effects for the news industry. When you use Google now, the site will often offer AI-generated summaries to you, instead of favoring human-written articles. We talk to Platformer’s Casey Newton about why this is happening, why publishers are nervous, and about a secret new internet you may not have heard of, a paradise to which we may all yet escape.
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Search Engine - How do we survive the media apocalypse? (Part 1)
Platformer - Google's broken link to the web
404 Media - Why Google is shit now
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5/22/2024 • 1 hour, 4 minutes, 22 seconds
Should this creepy search engine exist?
After stumbling on a new kind of search engine for faces, we called privacy journalist Kashmir Hill. She’s been reporting on the very sudden and unregulated rise of these facial search engines. Here’s the story of the very first one, the mysterious person who made it, and the copycats it helped spawn.
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5/10/2024 • 1 hour, 1 minute, 4 seconds
What do trigger warnings actually do?
A listener’s brother dies by suicide, and afterwards, she finds herself angered by trigger warnings about suicide. She wants to know — are these actually helping other people? Or is it just something we do because we think we’re supposed to?
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5/3/2024 • 59 minutes, 29 seconds
Where's my flying car?
Since not long after the car was invented, we have wanted to stick wings on them and fly them through the sky. This week, we interview writer Gideon Lewis-Kraus about the surprisingly long history of actual, working flying cars in America. Plus, what it's like to actually fly in a modern flying car.
Read Gideon's article! Support the show!
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4/19/2024 • 55 minutes, 40 seconds
Do political yard signs actually do anything?
It’s an election year and so Search Engine’s campaign desk is answering the questions you really want answers to: all the political yard signs in your neighbors’ yards … do they do anything besides make everyone like each other less?
An experiment that definitively answers this question.
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4/12/2024 • 37 minutes, 9 seconds
Why are there so many illegal weed stores in New York City? (Part 2)
In part two of our story, we watch the state of New York try to pull off something we rarely see in America: a kind of reparations. A very ambitious dream encounters a thicket of details and complications. The whole time, cameras roll, broadcasting the meetings on YouTube.
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4/5/2024 • 1 hour, 8 minutes, 27 seconds
Why are there so many illegal weed stores in New York City? (Part 1)
In 2021, New York legalized cannabis for adults. It was supposed to be the start of a legal market, led by people arrested during prohibition. Instead, a strange new market has flourished, seemingly every formerly empty store in the city now sells weed. How'd that happen? In part one, the history of prohibition and how it helps explain the mess we're in now.
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3/29/2024 • 52 minutes, 19 seconds
A big announcement from Search Engine plus, "What's in your cocaine?"
We've launched a new premium feed called Incognito Mode. It includes bonus episodes of Search Engine and some other very special features. We're including a preview episode here: an interview with a very candid, high-level drug dealer about adulterants in the illicit drug supply. Sign up now, at searchengine.show or go there to learn more.
(More thoughts about why we're doing this and the future of our show).
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3/22/2024 • 13 minutes, 51 seconds
How do we survive the media apocalypse?
Something strange, new, and unsettling is happening in media right now. Huge institutions, both newspapers and online outlets, are being severely transformed by layoffs.
As a person just trying to find good information on the internet, what are you supposed to do? We’re joined this week again by Ezra Klein, who has an explanation for why this is happening, a prediction about where it’s going, and a prescription for what we all can do about it.
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3/15/2024 • 1 hour, 2 minutes, 37 seconds
Who's behind these scammy text messages we've all been getting?
Hi David, I’m Vicky Ho. Don’t you remember me?
An investigative reporter travels halfway around the world to find out who is sending him random wrong number texts and why. After you hear this story, you'll never look at these messages the same way again.
You can grab a copy of Zeke's book, Number Go Up, here.
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3/8/2024 • 1 hour, 11 minutes, 52 seconds
How do you make an addictive video game?
This episode will change how you look at games. We talk to Ben Brode, the designer behind Hearthstone and Marvel Snap, about how a creative person learns to make the things they love, and about the secret ideas hiding in games as simple as rock-papers-scissors.
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3/1/2024 • 53 minutes, 43 seconds
Where did all the roaches go?
Cockroaches were a scourge that scuttled through the cracks and crevices of homes all throughout America. And then one day, large numbers of them mysteriously disappeared. A miracle for humankind? Sure. But for cockroaches: the world's grimmest true crime story.
This story is a collaboration with our friends over at Radio Atlantic.
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2/23/2024 • 42 minutes, 7 seconds
What are we gonna do about all these cats?
A question that has launched a battle between bird-loving ecologists and ardent, cat-defending activists. What should we do about an invasive species beloved by many Americans -- cats? We hear from people on both sides of the war, and from one person who sits exactly in the middle.
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2/9/2024 • 53 minutes, 39 seconds
How do you survive fame?
Actor Molly Ringwald joins us to talk about a time in her life when her job was to pretend to be a normal American teenager, a job which made it impossible to actually be a normal American teenager.
How did she learn to survive? In an era when the internet has turned many more people into public figures, what can everybody else learn from her?
Plus, Sruthi Pinnamaneni tries to learn more about a rare and enchanting song.
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2/2/2024 • 1 hour, 12 minutes, 50 seconds
Why are there so many chicken bones on the street? (Part 2)
This week, the shocking finale of our investigation into who -- or what -- has been leaving chicken bones strewn across the sidewalks of American cities. Our team of investigators returns with surveillance footage, and a recording of a superintendent with a rat-hitting stick. Plus, an exclusive interview with a public servant with a vision for a revolution in American urban trash collection.
Check out Manny, Noah, and Devan online.
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1/26/2024 • 35 minutes, 23 seconds
Introducing: The Chris Chatman Do-Over, starring Ike Barinholtz
In this improvised comedy podcast, Ike Barinholtz stars as controversial shock jock host Chris Chatman. Chatman’s hit podcast was canceled but he's listened, learned, and is back on the mic to finally win over a few female listeners. Or maybe even just one. In each episode, Chatman and his co-hosts Frankie (Lisa Gilroy) and the Professor (Neil Casey) unpack hot-button issues with expert guests but offend pretty much everyone in the process. Guest stars include Amy Poehler, Fred Armisen, Ashley Nicole Black, Carla Cackowski, Craig Cackowski, Liz Cackowski, Jessica St. Clair, E.R. Fightmaster, Ego Nwodim, Busy Philipps, Emily Spivey, and Alice Stanley Jr.
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1/23/2024 • 3 minutes, 47 seconds
Why are there so many chicken bones on the street?
A team of investigators with an unusual set of skills joins us this week to solve a mystery that haunts dog owners across modern American cities. On our journey, we'll have video surveillance, thousands of years of poultry history, and some hard truths about highway apples.
Check out Manny, Noah, and Devan online.
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1/19/2024 • 40 minutes, 51 seconds
When do you know it’s time to stop drinking?
This week, a question a podcast has no business trying to answer. We talk to writer A.J. Daulerio about his own story of recovery, and the story of how he found himself opening a very unusual community on the internet.
You can find the Search Engine newsletter here.
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1/12/2024 • 1 hour, 44 seconds
Am I the victim of an international sushi scam? (Part 2)
We bring you the shattering conclusion to our investigation into whether a New York City sushi restaurant is swapping their tuna rolls for “the ex-lax fish.” The DNA test is in.
Can we trust anyone? Are our fish safe to eat? What’s the email address where you submit for the Pulitzers? We have answers.
Plus a bonus this week — the 5-second rule is put to a laboratory test.
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12/15/2023 • 42 minutes, 24 seconds
Am I the victim of an international sushi scam?
We investigate unsettling rumors that fish purveyors may be mislabeling fish to save a buck. Our path leads us deep into the shadowy world of blackmarket fish sales, and sends us hot on the trail of the infamous ex-lax fish. Plus, we look back to antiquity for the first ever recorded emergency podcast.
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12/8/2023 • 45 minutes, 1 second
Who should be in charge of AI?
This week, the story of a very brief, very absurd revolution at the world’s leading artificial intelligence company, OpenAI. And we try to answer the quite real question that might be animating all of the drama.
Check out Casey Newton's newsletter Platformer and our newsletter, too.
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12/1/2023 • 56 minutes, 45 seconds
Why don’t we eat people?
This week, a question from a four-year-old tips us into an investigation of one of our most fundamental taboos: cannibalism. With help from New Yorker food critic Hannah Goldfield and writer Kelefa Sanneh.
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11/17/2023 • 1 hour, 1 minute, 13 seconds
The Bull of Wall Street
Every day in Manhattan, about 1,000 people will stand outside in a long line waiting for their chance to take a picture with a bronze bull. On many of those days, PJ Vogt stares at the scene trying to decode what exactly is going on here. This week, he get answers, and a story that leads back to one of the most peculiar art crimes of the 1980s.
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11/10/2023 • 51 minutes, 27 seconds
Why'd I take speed for twenty years? (Part 2)
In part two of our story about ADHD medications, we approach the question from a different angle.
We meet a doctor who spent two decades convinced that her brain does not work correctly, and who struggled to find someone who believed her.
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11/3/2023 • 48 minutes, 54 seconds
Why'd I take speed for twenty years?
One of the millions of millennials given prescription stimulants to treat ADHD decides to quit. And afterwards wonders -- how did these drugs becomes so popular, so fast? This week, the story of amphetamine's birth, life, death, and rebirth in America. (Methylphenidates, too.)
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10/27/2023 • 58 minutes, 49 seconds
Otherworld x Search Engine
In honor of the spooky season, we're sharing an episode of Otherworld, a podcast where host Jack Wagner tells the stories of people who believe they've had paranormal experiences.
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10/25/2023 • 1 hour, 7 minutes, 11 seconds
Is there a sane way to use the internet?
Ezra Klein joins Search Engine this week to answer a question that's increasingly confounded us: how do I use the internet now? How do I get information about the things I care about, without getting sucked into a vortex of opinion, unearned certainty, and yelling?
If you want to see the images & video referenced in this episode, or if you'd like to support the show, head to our newsletter.
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10/20/2023 • 59 minutes, 59 seconds
Heavyweight x Search Engine
Search Engine is VERY EXCITED to share the news that Heavyweight, one of our favorite shows, is now available wherever you download podcasts. To celebrate, and to herald the release of their new season, we're sharing one of our favorite episodes of the show. We will be back with a new episode of our own on October 21.
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10/9/2023 • 41 minutes, 44 seconds
The Fond Du Lac Apartment Mystery
Why would the government give Korianne a coupon for a free apartment that she can’t find? We have a question from a listener who finds herself very lost in Wisconsin. And a bonus question, from the internet’s own Taylor Lorenz: What happens when you pay someone else to surf your internet?
If you want to see the images & videos referenced in this episode, or if you'd like to support the show, head to our newsletter.
And you can order Taylor Lorenz's new book here.
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10/6/2023 • 56 minutes, 38 seconds
Where did the 8 billion dollars go?
This week, the story of former crypto wunderkind Sam Bankman-Fried. The government alleges he stole over eight billion dollars from the customers of the crypto exchange he started, FTX.
Our question ... how do you blow eight billion dollars? Investigative financial reporter Zeke Faux helps us answer our question.
Be sure to check out Zeke's book, Number Go Up: Inside Crypto's Wild Rise and Staggering Fall. If you'd like to support the show, head to our newsletter: pjvogt.com.
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9/29/2023 • 1 hour, 7 minutes, 44 seconds
Why are we still buying diamonds?
They’re shiny rocks that we’ve somehow agreed embody romance and eternity. But diamonds, it turns out, are not as rare as we think. And these days, they can be made in a lab. So why do we continue to spend so much money on them? This week, the story of a century-long, international scheme. And the story of how it fell apart.
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9/22/2023 • 58 minutes, 3 seconds
Why’s it so hard to figure out how many people watch Stranger Things?
Maya Hawke, of Stranger Things, would like to know why won’t Netflix just tell her how many people watch the show? Plus the question underneath that question … might the internet have broken our TV industry? We get answers with help from Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw.
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Check out my newsletter this week for some thoughts about how this story might relate to the podcast industry.
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9/15/2023 • 58 minutes, 4 seconds
Does anyone actually like their job?
... Or, am I being lied to by a Brooklyn-based musician? At twenty-five, I had a question for The Hold Steady’s Craig Finn. This week, I finally got to ask it.
If you have questions or comments about this episode, or if you'd like to support the show, head to our newsletter: pjvogt.com
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9/1/2023 • 43 minutes, 28 seconds
Why are drug dealers putting fentanyl in everything? (Part 2)
We speak to Luis, a former fentanyl dealer and user who tells us why a dealer might want to put fentanyl in less lethal drugs. Luis also tells us how he learned the rules of dealing, and how the rules changed over his multi-decade career.
If you have questions or comments about this episode, or if you'd like to support the show, head to our newsletter here.
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8/18/2023 • 49 minutes, 4 seconds
Why are drug dealers putting fentanyl in everything?
Isn't it bad business to kill your own customers? In part one of our answer to this question, we talk to reporter Ben Westhoff, who helps us understand how Fentanyl became a street drug in the first place. He'll share recordings taped in a Chinese Fentanyl lab, and explain why some dealers might want to poison their own customers with the drug. If you have questions or comments about this episode, or if you'd like to support the show, head to our newsletter.
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8/11/2023 • 38 minutes, 19 seconds
Why can’t we just turn the empty offices into apartments?
Our quest for answers this week sends us over a hundred years into the past. We learn about the invisible rules and fights that determine what our neighborhoods look like. We also learn about houses with backyard roller coasters, tiny apartments inside of shopping malls, and then we think a little bit about death. Happy Friday!
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https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy
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To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy
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8/4/2023 • 46 minutes, 44 seconds
What's it like to slowly go blind?
We interview writer Andrew Leland, who has been gradually losing his sight for two decades. Andrew takes us inside the blind internet, and teaches us how you deal with anxiety about the things you can't control that aren't going away.
Check out Andrew's new book, The Country of the Blind. And subscribe to the Search Engine newsletter here.
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7/28/2023 • 57 minutes, 49 seconds
What's going on with Elon Musk?
Search Engine investigates the erratic behavior of the world’s wealthiest man with Hard Fork’s Casey Newton. The three top theories for why Elon Musk has begun to act strangely, including one theory that upset our understanding of reality itself.
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7/21/2023 • 1 hour, 34 seconds
How do I find new music now that I’m old and irrelevant?
We enlist a very overqualified person to answer this question, writer Kelefa Sanneh, author of Major Labels: A History of Popular Music in Seven Genres. Kelefa listens to more music than practically anyone on earth, and this week he breaks down how even a normal person can find new stuff when they feel like their ears have rusted.
Check out the Search Engine newsletter for playlist recommendations from Kelefa, Search Engine's Noah John, and PJ Vogt.
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7/14/2023 • 45 minutes, 3 seconds
Wait, should I not be drinking airplane coffee?
Queer Eye’s Antoni Porowski has heard a disgusting rumor — that the coffee on airplanes is unsafe to drink because the onboard water tanks are only cleaned once a year. We investigate and learn some disgusting lessons along the way. Go to our newsletter here to see the images referenced in this episode.
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7/7/2023 • 53 minutes, 16 seconds
The End
A trip to Greenland, a chance encounter with Coolio, and the end of the world.
12/22/2022 • 51 minutes, 33 seconds
Sole Proprietor
Is it going to be OK?
(Here's a link to that Bad Bets trailer I mentioned.)
9/24/2022 • 4 minutes, 19 seconds
The Kidnapping of Ape #8398
An art heist in the crypto world plunges us headfirst into another mystery — why did so many celebrities suddenly start selling us on NFTs last year? (To help support the show or subscribe to the free newsletter, check out http://www.pjvogt.com)
6/28/2022 • 37 minutes, 21 seconds
The Drug Trader
This week we follow a dollar underground. For notes, further reading, or to support this project visit pjvogt.com.
5/26/2022 • 31 minutes, 37 seconds
The Lunatic Who Crashed Crypto
This week, a story of about how crypto just imploded due to one risky, financial product. And the fight-loving, Twitter-addicted founder who invented that product for his adoring army of lunatics.
Visit Crypto Island at pjvogt.com if you'd like to help support this project. There's a newsletter about how these episodes are made, too.
5/13/2022 • 30 minutes, 7 seconds
Genesis
This week: Bitcoin. We trace it from its humble origins in a .PDF to the movement it has spawned, all over three days at an enormous Bitcoin conference in Miami.
Visit Crypto Island at pjvogt.com if you'd like to ask questions about this episode, help support this project, or to simply view a photograph of this reporter collapsed from a panic attack. There's a newsletter about how this episode was made, too.
5/7/2022 • 1 hour, 4 minutes, 40 seconds
The Skeptic
The strange journeys of Cas Piancey, a baker turned crypto skeptic. (For notes & further reading on this episode, check out my newsletter at pjvogt.com).
4/5/2022 • 40 minutes, 55 seconds
Miguel
A conversation with Miguel Piedrafita. Why would a 19-year-old from Spain want to buy the US Constitution?
3/25/2022 • 15 minutes, 5 seconds
Welcome to Crypto Island
An introduction to this limited series. A video of a mysterious tropical island populated entirely by Bitcoin dynasts and Dogecoin princelings sends a reporter on a new journey.