Spotify is shaping listening habits, so much so that musicians are shaping themselves for Spotify. It makes your musical world a little more prescribed, a little smaller. 

If it feels like everything’s getting a little stale, how do we get out?

Guest: Tiffany Ng, culture and tech writer.

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From Dr. Oz to RFK Jr. to Donald Trump himself—the incoming administration looks like it will be populated with pitchmen and influencers. Will anyone take steps to divest from their businesses or avoid conflicts of interest—or will everyone just follow Trump’s lead from last time? 

Guest: Drew Harwell, tech reporter for the Washington Post. 

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Anyone stuck in a knotted snarl of interstate clovers knows that GPS is both important and imperfect. But if GPS fails while you’re bringing a 737 in for a landing it could be catastrophic. 

Why is “GPS spoofing” on the rise—and how can airlines protect their flights against being caught up in conflict zones.

Guest: Drew FitzGerald, telecom reporter for the Wall Street Journal.

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Podcast production by Evan Campbell, Patrick Fort, and Cheyna Roth.

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Whatever X is, it ain’t the Twitter so many users fell in love with. Since the election, Bluesky has been on the rise, but it’s still only a fraction of the number of users on Twitter—at its peak or even now—or even fellow upstart Threads. 

Is Bluesky set to take over the role Twitter used to play, or is it just one of many networks in a Balkanized social media landscape? 

Guest: Will Oremus, a technology writer for the Washington Post

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Last May, a 12-year-old with sickle cell anemia was the first person to receive a new gene therapy to treat the disease. The process is painful, expensive, and still frightening and uncertain, but biomedical researchers are cautiously calling it a “cure.”

Guests:

Gina Kolata, medical reporter for the New York Times

Deb and Keith Cromer, parents to Kendric Cromer, the first person in the world to go through a commercially approved gene therapy for sickle cell anemia.

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Podcast production by Evan Campbell, Patrick Fort, and Cheyna Roth.

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The Department of Justice has released its recommendations for how Google’s monopoly on web search should be broken up. Top of their wishlist? Spinning off their web browser Chrome. 

But with a new administration coming to the White House, will Google have to comply?

Guest: Leah Nylen, antitrust reporter for Bloomberg News

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Disclosure in Podcast Description: A Bond Account is a self-directed brokerage account with Public Investing, member FINRA/SIPC. Deposits into this account are used to purchase 10 investment-grade and high-yield bonds. As of 9/26/24, the average, annualized yield to worst (YTW) across the Bond Account is greater than 6%. A bond’s yield is a function of its market price, which can fluctuate; therefore, a bond’s YTW is not “locked in” until the bond is purchased, and your yield at time of purchase may be different from the yield shown here. The “locked in” YTW is not guaranteed; you may receive less than the YTW of the bonds in the Bond Account if you sell any of the bonds before maturity or if the issuer defaults on the bond. Public Investing charges a markup on each bond trade. See our Fee Schedule. Bond Accounts are not recommendations of individual bonds or default allocations. The bonds in the Bond Account have not been selected based on your needs or risk profile. See https://public.com/disclosures/bond-account to learn more.

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Since Elon Musk took over, Twitter—er, sorry “X”—has been slowly deflating. But given that soon you’ll be getting yelled at by right-wing trolls directly from White House press briefings, and your data is being swept up to train A.I., is there any reason to stay on the site at all anymore? 

Guest: Nitish Pahwa, Slate business writer.

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Podcast production by Evan Campbell, Patrick Fort, and Alyssa Jeong Perry.

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Going on Joe Rogan’s podcast didn’t fit into Kamala Harris’s last month of campaigning, which consisted of a careful diet of traditional media and specifically selected appearances. It came up short against Donald Trump’s “get on mic with that guy and his big following” strategy. 

Guest: Makena Kelly, senior writer at Wired.

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Many folks were surprised at how soundly Donald Trump defeated Kamala Harris in the election, especially since they thought the polls made it seem like a coin flip. The problem is, that’s not quite what the polls were saying.

Guest: Tatishe M. Nteta, Provost Professor of Political Science, Director of UMass Poll

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As Elon Musk channeled his considerable resources towards Donald Trump’s campaign, there was talk about what his role in the new Trump administration would be. If his stint leading Twitter is any indication, the federal government could be in for a bumpy ride.

Guest: Zoë Schiffer, incoming director of business and industry at Wired, author of Extremely Hardcore: Inside Elon Musk’s Twitter.

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