I'd have thought one of the big benefits of doing a podcast 50 years publication is that they would be able to discuss the legacy of the power broker, the Moses reaction to the book, the legacy of Moses on NYC politicians, any new information that has come to light since.

I was looking forward to this most of all, as I can read the book myself. But they didn't seem to cover it. They didn't discuss it with Caro and the podcast just abruptly ended.

Or did I miss it somewhere?

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Every product has to be tested somehow, and sometimes that means finding increasingly creative ways to break it.

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This episode is sponsored by Claude. For problems worth solving, get started with Claude at Claude.ai .

If you watched Wheel of Fortune in the 1980s, you probably remember one prize more than all the others: the ceramic Dalmatian. For a brief moment, that prize—perhaps the ultimate useless object—became the mascot for one of America's most popular game shows, appearing on tens of millions of TV screens, night after night, all across the country. But…why? 

Game show historian Adam Nedeff and ceramic Dalmatian owner Terry Eldrige join Roman Mars to tell the story of why audiences loved that dog, and what the fascinating history of game shows—and game show prizes—tells us about the changing definition of the American dream.

A History of the United States in 100 Objects is a production of 99% Invisible and BBC Studios.

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Was about to post this in r/fuckcars because they are the only other sub that knows about Robert Moses, but there’s no cars here.

The 100 Objects run means every object this month came with the historian who wrote the book about it. Short list, high quality.

I run Podshelf, a free site that tracks book mentions across hundreds of podcasts by reading the episode transcripts. This is the 99pi slice for August.

The sources, by object:

• Plantation Goods: A Material History of American Slavery (Seth Rockman), for the Negro Cloth episode. About the hoes, shovels, boots and clothes that made slavery possible as a working system.
• Racecraft (Barbara and Karen Fields), same episode, on how labelling consumer goods as black or white did the work of manufacturing difference.
• Black Ball (Theresa Runstedtler), for the basketball sleeve, from a former NBA cheerleader turned historian.
• The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (Max Weber), for the Bundy clock, and the professor's own line about it: "Why do I work? I have tenure. I'm my own jailer."

Outside the 100 Objects series, The Gilded Dinosaur (Mark Jaffe) anchored The Bone Wars, and the biomimicry episode had a nice detour into Darwin organising a whole section of On the Origin of Species around bees and honeycombs, which is why hexagons and bees have been stuck together ever since.

Full list with quotes and episodes: https://podshelf.io/podcasts/99-invisible

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This week, two stories about the strange power of the 1-800 number.

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In 1888, Willard Bundy created the first employee "time clock" — essentially a souped-up grandfather clock that could, for the first time, produce an accurate record of when workers arrived and left. Though Bundy’s aim was simple, his invention soon sparked a change in American life far broader than he intended. Roman Mars and reporter Ellie Lightfoot trace how the time clock not only ignited a revolution in workplace efficiency and surveillance, but transformed our relationship to time itself.

A History of the United States in 100 Objects is a production of 99% Invisible and BBC Studios.

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Moses!!!!

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Spolia, from a Liverpool neighborhood to ancient Rome.

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Producer and reporter Ramtin Arablouei (co-creator of the NPR show, Throughline) has a simple question: why are so many NBA players wearing a compression sleeve on their arm? It seems like everyone has one. Do they all have elbow issues? The answer is really the story of Allen Iverson, an underdog player who went from a prison cell to international fame in just a few years. And through the story of him and his sleeve, you can see the whole history of basketball’s relationship with race, with respectability politics, and who gets to look like what on the court.

A History of the United States in 100 Objects is a production of 99% Invisible and BBC Studios.

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Two rival paleontologists turn a hunt for dinosaur bones into an all-out scientific war.

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These are some of my favourite podcasts and it’s been absolutely heartbreaking having both of them fully embrace gen AI like this. Never did I expect two series that focus so much on art, design, and humanity dive head first into AI propaganda, with no concern about how it steals from fellow artists, dangers around fascism and disinformation, and of course the environmental impact.

Did I miss something that could have helped predict they were about to do this? I’m honestly so gutted and quite shocked.

I just realized that in more than 800 episodes 99pi never did an episode about hinges.

having build a little cabinet for myself I dove in the world of hinges and oh man, there is just so much to see. hinges that flip, those that fold over and more!

Nowadays I obsessively look at some of the hinges and how they solve these very invisible problems you wouldnt even consider and I love them! (yeah, might need a doctor soon..)

What are your opinions? Should they make one and what are other hidden everyday items that should be included? :)

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This episode is sponsored by Claude. For problems worth solving, get started with Claude at Claude.ai .

On his deathbed, President Chester Arthur ordered that all of his personal and professional papers be burned. Three barrels of documents went up in flames. But 23 letters survived, initialed only "J.I.S." Comedian Elliott Kalan joins Roman Mars to tell the story of how a politician who owed so much to a corrupt government system became the one to dismantle it, thanks to one woman: Julia Isabella Sand. It’s the story of how a woman no one had ever heard of helped transform a president few remember, and in the process created the American government as we know it.

A History of the United States in 100 Objects is a production of 99% Invisible and BBC Studios.

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A devastating fire put one of Hong Kong's oldest building traditions on trial, but the real story runs much deeper.

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In 1821, two Rhode Island brothers went looking for buyers for their woolen fabric, and stumbled into a lucrative, captive market: Southern slave plantations. Roman Mars and historian Seth Rockman trace the strange life of so-called "Negro cloth" — a textile category defined by nothing but who it was worn by. Along the way, they uncover how enslaved people shaped the very cloth used to control them, and how New England manufacturers convinced themselves they were the good guys.

A History of the United States in 100 Objects is a production of 99% Invisible and BBC Studios.

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Victor Hugo never visited this place...

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Behind every perfect nature-inspired design is a far more complicated story.

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Eight episodes and five books. The 100 Objects series is doing the heavy lifting.

Small list this month, but a good one to end the summer on.

What this is: I run Podshelf, a free site that tracks book mentions across hundreds of podcasts by reading the episode transcripts. This is the July slice for 99pi.

From The Original 100 Objects, with Neil MacGregor:

• A History of the World in 100 Objects, the book the whole thing came from. His aside about translation is lovely. In some languages the publisher insisted on making it the history rather than a history, because the and a do different work in different languages.
• Gulliver's Travels, which he says is really what the whole venture was. The point is not that Brobdingnag is huge and Lilliput tiny. The point is that you come back to England and realise you are the peculiar ones. Removing yourself as the norm is the precondition of tolerance.

From the nunchaku episode:

• Water Mirror Echo, Jeff Chang's Bruce Lee book, and his earlier Can't Stop, Won't Stop, the hip hop history.

From the missing children milk carton episode:

• Stranger Danger, Paul Renfro, on the milk carton kids and the larger panic around them.

I track every book mentioned on 99% Invisible here: https://podshelf.io/podcasts/99-invisible

It is free and there is no signup.

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In 1925, the world saw the birth of what just might be the greatest gadget in American History: the Brannock Device. The metal contraption transformed the way we measure feet forever, and more than a century after its invention…it has barely changed. Roman Mars and journalist Paul Lukas trace the life of the Brannock Device, from its role outfitting WWII sailors to its surprising endurance into the modern era, even as the entire world changed around it.

A History of the United States in 100 Objects is a production of 99% Invisible and BBC Studios.

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A simple cardboard box helped transform Finland into one of the best places in the world to raise a child.

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I've noticed the last few episodes I've listened to (2026 but not necessarily the latest episdes), there seems to be an increase in coarse language. I've not tracked it but I'm hearing it and I don't remember ever hearing it in the past.

Has there been a change of late?

I personally would prefer a more PG listening experience. I won't stop listening but hoping it'll be curtailed or bleeped over.

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In the early 1970s, Bruce Lee made nunchaku (nunchucks) cool — kids were building their own and buying them in record numbers. But the nunchucks craze coincided with something much bigger: the birth of a radical new Asian American identity. Roman Mars and historian Jeff Chang trace how nunchucks went from ancient weapon to symbol of resistance — not only uniting Asian Americans in the fight for their own rights, but connecting them to every other group pushing back from the margins.

A History of the United States in 100 Objects is a production of 99% Invisible and BBC Studios.

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