How Your World Works

On today's show, IDEO's Dav Rauch and Peter Hyer talk about their work designing the interfaces in everything from ATMs to Tony Stark's Iron Man suit. It turns out that thinking about how people use stuff is a pretty fun job, full of insights into the quirks of human behavior, even--or especially--when you get to try things like using beach balls to compose music, or a burrito as a video game menu.

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On today's episode, fantasy football addict (and Popular Mechanics Executive Editor) Peter Martin joins the show as a guest interviewer when we talk to Matthew Berry, ESPN's senior fantasy sports analyst. Everyone envies the job, but Berry put in serious work to get it: He's been playing fantasy sports since the days when the week's results had to be faxed out by the league commissioner. He explains how the game has changed, how he keeps up with so many different leagues, and how his wife handles him watching every single NFL game, every single week. And then Peter petitions him for a lightning round of draft advice.

Music in this episode includes the tracks "Penalty Shot" and "Leave Me On The Sub Bench" from the album World of Football 14 by Keshco, available under a Creative Commons license.

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On today's episode, we talk to Glenn Hiemstra, the founder of Futurist.com. To start with, he explains what it even means to be a futurist. Then he tells us a little more about what it takes to peer into the unformed times that await, breaks down the things he's been right and wrong about, and discusses what he sees coming in our near future. The good news: We all might have a lot more leisure time. The bad news: We all might not have cars.

Special musical thanks for this episode go to Jonas for "The future?" Cullah for "Rocket Into The Future," and Cory Gray for "Tell The Future."

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On today's episode, Jeremy Bennett from Filson and Matt Bressler from Wickett & Craig - one of the nation's few tanneries that specialize in high-quality vegetable tanning - stop by the studio to discuss working with leather. By the time this episode is over, you'll know what a splitter is, what a skiver is, and the how many square feet of skin cover a jumbo heavy native steer.

Thanks to Kevin Bewersdorf for his composition "The Last Seinfeld," used on today's show.

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Among the many ideas that have been floated for slowing down climate change, carbon capture and sequestration is one of the easiest to understand: When carbon dioxide is produced - say, by a factory - you find a way to trap it, then bury it someplace where it can't get into the atmosphere and contribute to the intensifying greenhouse effect. But CO2 shoved into storage as a gas or liquid can leak, especially if, at some point in the future, we manage to lose track of all the places we put it. On today's show, Professor Martin Stute of Barnard College joins the show to talk about an alternate technique his team has already gotten working at a power plant in Iceland: through a chemical reaction, they turn the CO2 into harmless rock.

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In honor of the 100th Anniversary edition of the Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest, competitive eating lifer Crazy Legs Conti comes on the show to talk about the sport. Aside from explaining how he got started in professional engorging (hint: it involves oysters), he gives us a rundown of eating strategies, ruminates on the hardest foods to eat fast, and officiates a Popular Mechanics eating competition between host Kevin Dupzyk and producer Katie Macdonald.

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On today's show, we talk to Pecos Davis and Chance Parsons, firefighters with the Malaga Volunteer Fire Department in Eddy County, New Mexico. Working with few resources in the southwest corner of the state, they've ridden one-to-a-truck to fires sparked by wind-borne static electricity and built their own foam-dispensing equipment. Also, they regularly use a tool called a "Snozzle." And as we find out, they wouldn't have it any other way.

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If you’ve ever seen a Cirque du Soleil show, or perhaps Marvel Universe Live, there’s a good chance you’ve seen the work of Brett Copes. He’s a rigger—one of the guys who sets up the complicated stage apparatus that lets performers fly through the air—safely—while looking supremely cool. On today’s show, he explains the technical details that make it possible, including the reason a 150 pound acrobat may in practice weigh half a ton.

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On today’s show, Travis Law and Trevor Lacasse of Team Penske – mechanics for Helio Castroneves and Juan Pablo Montoya, who’ve won a combined five Indianapolis 500 races – talk about what they’ll be doing this weekend, when the race celebrates its centennial. While an individual pit stop lasts less than 10 seconds, it’s the result of painstaking practice, heavy strategizing, and the whim of weather and luck on the oval. We get the lowdown.

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On today’s episode, Chelsea Miller and Michael Zieba – both master knife makers, albeit with very different origin stories – come to the studio to explain what it takes to make a knife. It’s hard work: there’s a forge involved, belt sanders, and the occasional knife through the hand or foot. That’s why they adamantly agree on one thing—you can’t take up knife making if you don’t love it.

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