Half as Interesting
S2024 · E20 — The Obscure System That Syncs All The World’s Clocks
S2024:E20 · The Obscure System That Syncs All The World’s Clocks
56 episodes in this season
South Korea Built a Mediocre New Capital in the Middle of Nowhere
6 min
Why There’s a Giant Barcode In The Middle of the Mojave Desert
The Special Design That Makes Library Books Indestructible
7 min
How the US Transports Its Nuclear Weapons
How Tokyo Made Itself Earthquake-Proof
Why a Big Box Store Started Solving Violent Crimes
The Very Real Australian Colleges with No Students
The Logistics of White House State Dinners
The Tiny Alaskan Town with the US’ Highest Taxicab Density
How This Michigan Town Accidentally Buried Itself in Sand
Why the FBI and the CIA Keep Lying to Each Other
Why It’s So Difficult to Build Subways in Rome
Why We’re Building a 790-Mile Wire From Kansas to Indiana
Why the North Korean Government Has a Tiny Office in NYC
8 min
Why So Many Trains Get Robbed in this One Spot
9 min
The Logistics of Prescribed Fires
Why Don’t Planes Carry Parachutes?
How the US Tests Nukes (Without Blowing Them Up)
The Man Who Stole an Entire Hotel
The Obscure System That Syncs All The World’s Clocks
How Storing Movies on Vinyl Lost RCA $650 Million
Why All Pro Basketball Players Shoot Free Throws Wrong
The One Company That Owns 2,390 Colors
10 min
The 517,431 Emails That Trained Siri
Why There’s a Pacific Ocean Port in Idaho
Why the Ocean Looks So Fake on Google Maps
Why the US Drops 14.7 Million Worms On Panama Every Week
Why Nobody Knows What 彁 Means
The Weird, Terrible Smartphones They Only Have in North Korea
Mumbai’s Crazy-Efficient, 99.9999% Accurate Food Delivery System
How the UN Translates Everything in Real-Time
How this Oklahoma Town Became Completely Uninhabitable
How America’s Largest, Most Secure Embassy Works
How the US Gov’s Riskiest Labs Contain Deadly Viruses
The One Long Wire Ruining America’s Most Important Train
The Super-Complex Security of the Paris Olympics
The Logistics of Mount Everest’s Base Camp
The $190 Million Tunnel Built for Just 1200 People
The Worst Mistakes We Made This Year
The Massively Bureaucratic System for Confirming a “Miracle”
The Board That Decides Every Place Name in the U.S.
Why 1% of the Stock Market is Tied to 11 Random Americans
How Ski Resorts Store Snow Over the Summer
Why Only One US City Doesn’t Add Fluoride to Its Water
How They Dug the Deepest Hole on Earth
How This Card Game Accidentally Became a Stock Market
How This Single 'M' Almost Ruined a US Presidency
How The USA’s Only Car-Free Village Works
Why Hawaii's H-3 is the Most Expensive Interstate Ever
The Crazy-Complex Process of Organizing a Container Ship
How This Waffle Restaurant Mastered Hurricanes
How Istanbul Moved Its Airport in Just 45 Hours
The US’ Surprisingly Busy Nuclear Emergency Team
How a Whole Country Got Cut Off From The Internet for 38 Days
How This Tunnel Accidentally Created an Immigration Loophole
The $18.8 Bil, Borderline Useless Bridge Between Hong Kong and Macau
