Make Me Smart

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Make Me Smart episodes

July 29, 2021You can’t hide from Facebook
Facebook earnings are out, and one our listeners is looking for a little clarity in how exactly the company keeps beating expectations and bringing in tens of billions every quarter. We’ll get into the nuances of ad targeting, locking down your profile and how we create our own filter bubbles. Plus, more answers to your questions about the Congressional Budget Office, Navy planes and unemployment benefits.

Here’s everything we talked about today:
“Did hiring pick up after states ended extra federal unemployment benefits?” from “Marketplace”
“States that dropped $300 weekly unemployment benefits didn’t see hiring boost” from “Marketplace Morning Report”
“This is how Facebook uses your data for ad targeting” from Recode
“Facebook beats earnings expectations, but warns of significant growth slowdown” from CNBC
Kai’s 2017 interview with then-CBO head Keith Hall
“An Evaluation of CBO’s Past Revenue Projections” from the CBO
“Americans are heading back to gyms as interest in at-home workouts wanes, Jefferies says” from CNBC
“Peloton reveals the cost of its treadmill recall. Short answer: A lot” from Fortune
Read the transcript here.
Our show needs your voice! Tell us what you think of the show or ask a question for our hosts to answer! Send a voice memo or give us a call at 508-82-SMART (508-827-6278).
17 min
July 27, 2021WeWork’s whole bananapants story
Was WeWork a tech company? A trillion-dollar business? A way of life? With the benefit of hindsight it’s easy to say, emphatically, “No.” But looking back at the lofty goals and investor enthusiasm that propelled the We Co. to a $47 billion valuation, we’re left wondering if the people involved have learned anything. Here to talk with us about it is Wall Street Journal reporter Maureen Farrell, who co-wrote the new book “The Cult of We: WeWork, Adam Neumann and the Great Startup Delusion.” Plus: Simone Biles, the Food and Drug Administration and polyamory pedantics.
Here’s everything we talked about today:
Read an excerpt from “The Cult of We”
Revisit our previous episodes on WeWork and SPACs
“WeWork Prepares For A Second Act — Banking Its Future On The Rise Of Remote Work” from NPR
“Simone Biles withdraws from women’s team gymnastics at Tokyo Olympics as ROC wins gold” from CNN
“CDC reinstitutes mask recommendations for some vaccinated people” from The Verge
“FDA says its ‘working as quickly as possible’ to review for full approval of vaccines” from ABC News
“Biden Projects Final F.D.A. Vaccine Approval Within Months” from The New York Times
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey’s pro-vaccine (but anti-mask) Washington Post op-ed
“Sallie Krawcheck on what the pandemic means for women’s finances” from Marketplace
Click here to read a transcript of this episode.
Our show needs your voice! Tell us what you think of the show or ask a question for our hosts to answer! Send a voice memo or give us a call at 508-82-SMART (508-827-6278).
30 min
July 27, 2021We need to think about the unvaccinated differently
There are limits to personal freedom and responsibility — it runs out when you put others at risk. You can’t drive drunk, for example. But are people who aren’t vaccinated for COVID-19 as brazen as a drunk driver? Or are they victims, scammed by bad information? Sociology professor Brooke Harrington has a great thread trying to reconcile all this, and we’re going to unpack it a bit on today’s show. Plus: Olympics highs and lows, the Frito-Lay strike and a sneak peek of tomorrow’s bananapants episode.

Here’s everything we talked about today:
Harrington’s thread on COVID vaccines
“California, New York City to Mandate Covid-19 Vaccine or Regular Testing for Government Workers” from The Wall Street Journal
“V.A. Issues Vaccine Mandate for Health Care Workers, a First for a Federal Agency” from The New York Times
“Disinformation for Hire, a Shadow Industry, Is Quietly Booming” also from the Times
“Frito-Lay Workers in Kansas Ratify Contract, Ending Strike” from, yep, The New York Times
“Tunisia’s Ahmed Hafnaoui’s Olympic win sparks pride and joy at home” from The Washington Post
“The Math Ph.D. Who Just Shocked Olympic Cycling” from The Wall Street Journal
“Pop singer Pink supports Norwegian women’s beach handball team protest over fines for ‘very sexist’ uniform rules” from ESPN

Read the transcript here.
Our show needs your voice! Tell us what you think of the show or ask a question for our hosts to answer! Send a voice memo or give us a call at 508-82-SMART (508-827-6278).
18 min
July 24, 2021Make Me Sports
We started out this episode talking about the folks who are still unvaccinated for COVID-19, but quickly turned to the way the NFL switched from carrot to stick in response to the delta variant. That’s just one of a few big stories we have to talk about on this oddly sports-centric show. We’ll also talk about why HIPAA doesn’t mean what many people think it means, and play another round of Half Full/Half Empty.

Here’s everything we talked about today:
“St. Louis, St. Louis County To Renew Mask Mandates On Monday” from St. Louis Public Radio
“Rick Dennison out as Minnesota Vikings assistant after refusing COVID-19 vaccine, sources say” from ESPN
“NFL to enforce forfeits in event of COVID-19 cancellation” from Sports Illustrated
“Some Nice Pictures of Naomi Osaka at the Cursed Olympics Which Do Not Deserve Her” from Jezebel, plus Osaka’s tweet about the event.
Our Half Full/Half Empty topics: Teenagers flooding the job market (plus Kimberly’s story about lifeguards), the EU carbon tariff, Dollar General health care, and the Cleveland Guardians
Our show needs your voice! Tell us what you think of the show or ask a question for our hosts to answer! Send a voice memo or give us a call at 508-82-SMART (508-827-6278).
21 min
July 23, 2021Let’s talk about loneliness
Welcome to the metaverse! It’s run by Facebook. Plus: We cover a wide range of topics on this show and on our other daily news programs. But there’s a big one, a part of the human condition, we don’t often touch. So today we’re going to talk a bit about the proliferation of “ethical non-monogamy” on dating apps, the increase in sex toy sales in the pandemic, and why we don’t talk about those things on air very often.

Here’s everything we talked about today:
“Mark Zuckerberg is betting Facebook’s future on the metaverse” from The Verge
“Polyamory increases in popularity as record numbers flock to dating apps” from ABC News
“How Polyamorists and Polygamists Are Challenging Family Norms” from The New Yorker
“People are more sexually adventurous right now — and more cautious” from Mashable
“Augmented reality may change how we see the world. Until then, we have Pokémon.” from “Marketplace Tech”
Plus a Pokémon grammar lesson
“Jordan Peele reveals title of new thriller starring Daniel Kaluuya” from The A.V. Club
Our show needs your voice! Tell us what you think of the show or ask a question for our hosts to answer! Send a voice memo or give us a call at 508-82-SMART (508-827-6278).
Join us on YouTube Fridays at 3:30 p.m. Pacific/6:30 p.m. Eastern for our live happy hour episode! Subscribe to our channel and sign up for notifications so you don’t miss it.
17 min
July 22, 2021Hey, whatever happened to student loan forgiveness?
Federal student loan forbearance is set to expire at the end of September. There was a lot of talk at the start of the year of the Biden administration forgiving some amount of student loan debt, and one listener wants to know: What happened with all that? We’ll attempt to figure out the answer on this Whadda Ya Wanna Know Wednesday, plus more of your questions about the doctor shortage and the longevity of phone and electric car batteries.

Here’s everything we talked about today:
“Broken iPhone? Stalled Tractor? FTC Wants to Make It Easier to Fix Them” from The Wall Street Journal
“The Fix Is In” from United States Public Interest Research Group
“Electric Car Battery Life: Everything You Need to Know” from Car and Driver
“Tesla and the science behind the next-generation, lower-cost, ‘million-mile’ electric-car battery” from CNBC
“Millions of electric cars are coming. What happens to all the dead batteries?” from Science
“Biden has canceled $1.5 billion in student loan debt so far. It doesn’t mean broad forgiveness will come soon” from CNBC
“Student loan borrowers may get more time without having to make payments” also from CNBC
“Miguel Cardona’s Education Priorities: Addressing Disparities, Student Loans, Pre-K and More” from the Education Writers Association
And, of course, our episode on the student loan system
“The Covid-19 relief bill created 1,000 more residency slots for new doctors. Wealthy hospitals should be last in line to get them” from Stat News
“What would rural health care from a discount retailer look like?” from “Marketplace Morning Report”
“Out here, it’s just me: In the medical desert of rural America, one doctor for 11,000 square miles” from The Washington Post
Our show needs your voice! Tell us what you think of the show or ask a question for our hosts to answer! Send a voice memo or give us a call at 508-82-SMART (508-827-6278).
Join us on YouTube Fridays at 3:30 p.m. Pacific/6:30 p.m. Eastern for our live happy hour episode! Subscribe to our channel and sign up for notifications so you don’t miss it.
18 min
July 21, 2021Our power grid is buckling under the weight of climate change
The power grid isn’t like other infrastructure. It’s a complex system that’s always on, on-demand all over the country. When supply can’t keep up with demand, as in extreme weather, things can go wrong very quickly. Carnegie Mellon assistant professor Destenie Nock studies and helps plan power systems, and on today’s show she’ll tell us about the challenges of maintaining and repairing a power grid in the face of climate change, and the outlook for potential solutions.
Here’s everything we talked about today:
“Recent heat waves show the US power grid is not ready for climate change” from Recode
“U.S. electrical grids are not prepared for climate change” from Marketplace
“Luntz: ‘I was wrong’ on climate change” from Politico
“The Luntz Memo and the Framing of Climate Change” from Big Think
“Drought in Utah Town Halts Growth” from the New York Times
“U.S. judge rules DACA program illegal, suspends new applications” from Reuters
A list of 10 dyslexia-friendly fonts
Our show needs your voice! Tell us what you think of the show or ask a question for our hosts to answer. Send a voice memo or give us a call at 508-82-SMART (508-827-6278).
36 min
July 20, 2021Monday is longreads day
We’re keeping with our What’d We Miss Monday theme and tackling a bunch of the biggest stories that crossed our desks this weekend. There’s the delta variant of COVID-19, the plight of Uyghurs in China and potential new worker safety regulations in the face of climate change. But if that all sounds like too much of a bummer, we have a fun story about gardening in space.

Here’s everything we talked about today:
“Florida man gets 8 months in prison in 1st felony sentence from Capitol riot” from NBC News
“A federal judge upholds Indiana University’s vaccination requirement for students.” from The New York Times
“Amazon to Stop Covid Testing in U.S. Warehouses” from The Information
“60% of people being admitted to UK hospitals are unvaccinated – adviser” from Reuters
“US to Accuse China of Microsoft Hacking” from The New York Times
“Senate passes bill that would ban all products from Xinjiang over China rights abuse” from Axios
“Actor John Cena apologizes to Chinese audience after calling Taiwan a country” from NBC News
“One by One, My Friends Were Sent to the Camps” from The Atlantic
“Dixie Fire may have been sparked by PG&E equipment, company says” from the San Francisco Chronicle
“Biden administration, workers grapple with health threats posed by climate change and heat” from The Washington Post
The Guardian’s Pegasus project
“Astronauts on International Space Station are growing chile peppers in a first for NASA” from CNN
“The Truth Behind the Amazon Mystery Seeds From China” from The Atlantic
Our show needs your voice! Tell us what you think of the show or ask a question for our hosts to answer! Send a voice memo or give us a call at 508-82-SMART (508-827-6278).
19 min
July 17, 2021We’re feeling a little apocalyptic today
You know how in disaster movies, you usually see a montage of news stories as everything falls apart? We can’t help but feel that way about all the climate-related news this week. Good thing it’s happy hour. Plus, Kai and Kimberly disagree on President Joe Biden’s rhetoric around Facebook and play a round of our favorite game, Half Full/Half Empty.

Here’s everything we talked about today:
“Biden says platforms like Facebook are ‘killing people’ with Covid misinformation” from CNN
And a thread from lawyer and podcaster Ken White about Biden’s comments
“Largest wildfire in U.S. spreads, larger than size of New York City and just 7% contained” from CBS News
“Extreme Heat Across US Is Squeezing Shellfish Supplies” from Bloomberg
“Work Injuries Tied to Heat Are Vastly Undercounted, Study Finds” from The New York Times
“Flood Deaths Are Rising In Germany, And Officials Blame Climate Change“
And our Half Full/Half Empty topics: infrastructure, TikTok’s crypto ban and marketing power, Comic Sans (thanks to listener Dale for suggesting that one!) and the new Indiana Jones movie
Our show needs your voice! Tell us what you think of the show or ask a question for our hosts to answer! Send a voice memo or give us a call at 508-82-SMART (508-827-6278).
24 min
July 16, 2021Misinformation is the new smoking
We got the Biden administration’s first advisory from the surgeon general today, and it’s about how mis- and disinformation have put lives at risk in the COVID-19 pandemic. As Los Angeles County gets ready for another mask mandate, we’ll talk about what that advisory could mean for regulations down the line. Also on today’s show: Shohei Ohtani, inflation and a reason to think twice before griping on Slack.

Here’s everything we talked about:
The text of Surgeon General Vivek Murthy’s advisory
“Facebook, Twitter and other social media companies need to be treated like Big Tobacco” from NBC News
“LA County will require masks indoors amid COVID-19 surge” from the Los Angeles Times
“Transatlantic inflation surge fuels economists’ fears of overheating” from the Financial Times
“Cleveland Clinic, Mount Sinai Won’t Give Biogen’s New Alzheimer’s Drug” from The Wall Street Journal
“Netflix Fires Marketing Execs for Criticizing Bosses Over Slack” from The Hollywood Reporter
“The Origin Story of Shohei Ohtani, Two-Way Superhero” from The Ringer
“ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith apologizes for “insensitive” comments about Japanese baseball star Shohei Ohtani” from CBS News
One of Ohtani’s more incredible hits
Join us on YouTube Fridays at 3:30 p.m. Pacific/6:30 p.m. Eastern for our live happy hour episode! Subscribe to our channel and sign up for notifications so you don’t miss it.
14 min

About Make Me Smart

From the publisher's feed

Each weekday, Marketplace’s Kimberly Adams makes today make sense along with her Marketplace colleagues, breaking down happenings in tech, the economy, and culture. Because none of us is as smart as…