Commute | The Podcast

Suddenly, eggs are expensive. Maybe inflation. Maybe … something else?

Artificial intelligence has become an engine of content creation. But who owns the content it creates?

Nike & Michael Jordan built and dominated the high-end shoe industry. It almost fell apart, though, before a young, inexperienced shoe designer got the call.

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Don's miss Jay as a guest cohost on the PandaVision Podcast for the next several weeks discussing the HBO show, The Last of Us:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-last-of-us-s01e01-when-youre-lost-in-the-darkness/id1512901578?i=1000594845190

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Sources/Go Deeper:
https://www.vox.com/2023/1/17/23559013/egg-prices-bird-flu-inflation-avian-influenza
https://gizmodo.com/free-ai-art-stability-midjourney-deviantart-sued-getty-1849995371
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/584677/air-jordan-iii-shocking-story-greatest-shoe-michael-jordan-never-wanted

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The D.A.R.E. Program had an admirable goal - to educate elementary age kids about the dangers of drug use, hoping the lessons would carry into adulthood. Did it work? Or did it somehow do the opposite?

Pepsi is always looking for the next great promotion - something to build the brand, sell the product and challenge Coke for soft drink supremacy. They usually give away a free hat or beach towel, but there was that time they promised a military-grade jet….

Football is king - the most popular sport in TV ratings, and it’s not even close. Football’s origins come from many places including a medieval game that, believe it or not, is still played today.

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Sources/Go Deeper:
https://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2022/12/did-d-a-r-e-actually-increase-drug-use/
https://www.mentalfloss.com/posts/pepsi-harrier-jet-lawsuit-history
https://mashable.com/article/medieval-football

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We lost another Hollywood celebrity recently, but this one was atypical in many ways. For starters, he wasn’t human.

We’ve all experienced disappointment in our lives, and we deal with it uniquely. For some tourists visiting a particular European city, can the shock of letdown be enough to cause a medical emergency?

We’ve talked about jingles before on the show, but this one is the granddaddy of them all - how the Chili’s baby back ribs tune went from forgettable blip to cultural legend.

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Sources/Go Deeper:
https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/17/us/los-angeles-mountain-lion-euthanized-trnd/index.html
https://www.livescience.com/what-is-paris-syndrome
https://www.mentalfloss.com/posts/chilis-baby-back-ribs-jingle-origins

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For over 100 years we have enjoyed a shared experience (for those of us still awake) when we count down the final minute of the year together for the big ball drop in New York City. Let’s be honest, though - isn’t this somewhat weird?

While it wasn’t selected as the Word of the Year, Wordle was the most googled word in 2022 and swept the nation with its simplicity of play and addictive nature. But this is more than the story of an entertainingly frustrating little word game - it’s a love story. 

(From the archives) Lose weight. Save money. Stop drinking caffeine. It’s that time of year to make New Year's resolutions. Every year we do them, and every year we mostly fail. Why?

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Episode Sources/Go Deeper:
https://www.businessinsider.com/new-years-eve-ball-drop-tradition-sailors-times-square-2016-12
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/03/technology/wordle-word-game-creator.html

http://www.commutethepodcast.com

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We’ve all sung it, though we can’t always name all 12 items in order (Hint: lots of birds). Where did this strange song come from?

Every holiday season a big man in red dusts off his finest jacket, combs out his white beard.. and heads to your local mall. It may seem simple, but being a Mall Santa is not for the faint of heart.

Did fighting really stop for a night so opposing sides could enjoy Christmas… together? The amazing story of the WWI Christmas Truce.

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Sources/Go Deeper:
https://www.vox.com/21796404/12-days-of-christmas-explained
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/72231/21-behind-scenes-secrets-mall-santas
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-story-of-the-wwi-christmas-truce-11972213/

http://www.commutethepodcast.com

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Often companies must defend their good names in the face of public criticism. Crockpot is one such company, only it took a different approach than most.

Every end of the year, social media gets bombarded with images of Spotify user’s wrapped reports - a list songs and artists most listened to by a user during the past year. But is this actually one of Spotify’s best advertising tools?

In 1969, the Rolling Stones decided to headline their own music festival, sort of a west coast Woodstock. The problem was they didn’t think all the logistics through, including hiring the Hells Angels to serve as security.

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Episode Sources/Go Deeper:
https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/1/25/16932248/this-is-us-crock-pot-jack
https://www.wired.com/story/spotify-wrapped-user-data/
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-altamont-festival-brings-the-1960s-to-a-violent-end
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/worst-decisions-in-music-history-1234626744/

http://www.commutethepodcast.com

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How much would you pay for celebrity-endorsed designer shoes at the latest hip shoe store? When the luxury store Palessi opened in L.A., the answer was anywhere from $400 to over $1,000. There was only one problem. Palessi wasn’t a luxury shoe store - it was an experiment.

When a couple of business-school classmates created their IT services website, rentahitman.com, they thought the name was quite clever. They never dreamt that people would take them seriously.

Gatorade. Powerade. Body Armor. Sports drinks are big business and a relatively new industry. Right? The ancient gladiators beg to differ.

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Sources/Go Deeper:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/11/30/they-had-us-fooled-inside-paylesss-elaborate-prank-dupe-people-into-paying-shoes/
https://people.com/crime/rentahitman-website-bob-innes-parody-lures-real-life-criminals/
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/10/27/357903336/gladiator-gatorade-ancient-athletes-also-had-a-recovery-drink

http://www.commutethepodcast.com

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Ep. 45. Replay:

By most accounts, ten-year-old Ryan Kaji is just like any other normal kid - he likes cartoons, playing with toys, and making silly videos. Where Ryan starts to differ from your kid, though, is that he made $30 million last year.

Internet black markets are wild and unregulated places (don’t look it up - it’s not for the faint of the heart), but you can always find help there for people in need. What if you needed to score some breast milk?  Anything’s possible, at the right price. 

The holidays become even more stressful when we think about preparing the yearly holiday dinner for family & friends - cooking a turkey is daunting! But not to fear: the Turkey Talk Line is here. 

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A special (and a little shorter) holiday week edition of the show:

With the holidays comes a lot of decisions. One of the biggest: should you take off your shoes when you enter someone else’s home?


The Dallas Cowboys and Detroit Lions play football every year on Thanksgiving Day. Why those two?

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Episode Sources/Go Deeper:
https://www.realsimple.com/home-organizing/cleaning/shoes-inside-house
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/31525/why-do-detroit-lions-and-dallas-cowboys-always-play-thanksgiving

http://www.commutethepodcast.com

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We just passed another election season so you know what that means - “I Voted” stickers are back! But do they really encourage higher voter turnout? And wait until you hear about the voting sticker of the year for 2022.

For 1 billion people around the globe it happens twice a year - we set our clocks ahead or behind an hour because of Daylight Savings Time. Why? Will it always be this way?

Wouldn’t it be great if you could gamble and never lose? Houston furniture mogul Jim “Mattress Mack” McIngvale may have figured it out. (From the archives w/ a recent update)

http://www.commutethepodcast.com

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