#taxonomy
22 episodes
#3878: Three Axes of Every Screw on Your Bench
How to identify any small screw by thread form, head style, and drive type — and never lose a project to a missing fastener again.
#3874: How to Tag 4000 Episodes Without Losing Your Mind
Why tagging breaks at scale, and how a two-stage AI pipeline fixes it for good.
#3850: The Cheap Beer That Tells You Everything
Why mediocre beer at happy hour says more about a startup than any nap pod ever could.
#3629: The Real Karl Pilkington: Genuine or Act?
Was Karl Pilkington faking it on *An Idiot Abroad*? And what else captures that same reluctant-host magic?
#3597: Building a Dream Guest Roster: Animals as Archetypes
What animals would make the best podcast guests? We map personalities to ravens, badgers, octopuses, and more.
#3543: Why Laws Are Written Like Palimpsests
Why do laws get amended instead of rewritten? And which countries actually make laws readable?
#3532: Inside the DSM: Why Standards Bodies Move So Slowly
Why do committees like the DSM take 14 years? The answer is more rigorous—and more interesting—than the cynics think.
#3465: 10 Folders That Actually Earn Their Keep
Ten folders to organize your household and small business — plus the stationery that actually lasts.
#3247: Where Does the Three-Class Model Actually Come From?
The three-class model isn't an official system — it's a folk taxonomy. Here's where it really comes from.
#3011: Why Grape Wine Won the Monopoly Game
Why pomegranate wine and other fruit wines can't compete with grapes — and which exceptions actually broke through.
#2915: The Barcode That Changed Everything
MPNs, UPCs, ASINs, and the secret hierarchy of product codes that engineers use to buy the right thing.
#2826: The Hidden Crisis in How We Name Life on Earth
Species are vanishing faster than we can name them — and the people who do the naming are disappearing too.
#2810: Every Catalog Is an Argument
From clay spine labels at Ebla to the Pinakes of Alexandria — how organizing knowledge shaped civilization.
#2802: The Tea Standard and 9 Other Weird ISO Rules
Ten hyper-specific international standards that make you question what humanity does with its collective time.
#2531: Worst-Rated Tourism: Seeking Out Terrible Hotels & Restaurants
Exploring the subculture of travelers who deliberately seek out the lowest-rated hotels and restaurants for authentic, entertaining experiences.
#2487: Why AI Calls Everything a "Prediction" (Even Images)
Machine learning calls everything a "prediction" — even generated images. Here's why the terminology matters more than you think.
#2262: Documentaries About Parking Lots and Drying Paint
A tour of the most baffling documentaries ever made, from a 10-hour film of paint drying to a feature-length portrait of a single parking lot.
#2090: Who Decides What Generation You Are?
We trace the history of generational labels from the Lost Generation to Gen Alpha, exploring who invents these names and why.
#1710: Two Hundred Years of Calling Sloths "Miserable Mistakes"
Why did early naturalists mistake sloths for bears, monkeys, and giant rats?
#1348: The Ghost in the Machine: Why Accounting Ignores the Planet
Why does the global economy feel disconnected from reality? Explore the 500-year history of the "blind spots" in our financial ledgers.
#1038: The Secret Architecture: Why Taxonomy Rules the AI Age
Ever wonder why search filters fail? Discover how taxonomy and ontology form the invisible backbone of everything from libraries to modern AI.
#816: From Scrolls to SQL: The Evolution of Human Order
Explore the history of how we organize the world, from ancient library catalogs to the future of AI-driven vector databases.