Lipstick and Runes
Look at your phone settings. There's a small angular icon there that you've probably never thought about much. It's a bind rune showing two characters from the ancient Younger Futhark alphabet, fused…
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Episodes
Stories about the surprising origins and hidden histories woven into computing culture. Every other week, a new chapter.
Down the Rabbit Hole: Drink Me, Eat Me, README
Every software project has one. It's easy to scroll past. Most of the time it's just a manual telling you system requirements, installation steps, and known bugs.But the README file owes a debt to Lew…
The Bug, The Cat, and The Wooden Mouse
On December 9th, 1968, a Stanford researcher named Douglas Engelbart took the stage in San Francisco and showed a thousand computer professionals something they had never seen: text editing, clickable…
UFOs, Model Trains, and Code's 'Sacred Syllable'
Every programmer knows foo. It's the placeholder name, the stand-in variable, the "insert name here" of software development. But where did it actually come from?In this episode, we trace the history…
Trailer: Stories From Beyond the Screen
Every function, framework, and flicker of code has a story. Introducing Lore in the Machine, a new podcast hosted by Daina Bouquin that uncovers the hidden histories and surprising origins woven in…