Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford

Panic has erupted in the cockpit of Air France Flight 447. The pilots are convinced they?ve lost control of the plane. It?s lurching violently. Then, it begins plummeting from the sky at breakneck speed, careening towards catastrophe. The pilots are sure they?re done-for.

Only, they haven?t lost control of the aircraft at all: one simple manoeuvre could avoid disaster?

In the age of artificial intelligence, we often compare humans and computers, asking ourselves which is ?better?. But is this even the right question? The case of Air France Flight 447 suggests it isn't - and that the consequences of asking the wrong question are disastrous.

For a full list of sources, see the show notes at timharford.com.

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Until the 1960s, it was deemed too "dangerous" for women athletes to run distances longer than 200m - and a marathon would kill them, or leave them unable to have children. Rubbish, of course. But when Kathrine Switzer signed up for the 1967 Boston Marathon, it wasn't the distance that bothered her - it was the enraged race director trying to assault her.   

Thanks to pioneers like Kathrine, women have made huge strides in long distance running - and are now challenging the times of men in the very races they were banned from for so very long.  

For a full list of sources, see the show notes at timharford.com.

Check out more Olympics related content from Pushkin Industries and iHeartPodcasts here.

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Adi and Rudi Dassler made sports shoes together - until a feud erupted between them. They set up competing companies, Adidas and Puma, and their bitter rivalry divided the sporting world, their family and even the inhabitants of their home town. 

The Dassler clan turned bickering into an art form - even drawing the likes of soccer legend Pele into their dispute. But did the brilliant fires of hatred produce two world-class companies, or was it a needless distraction from the Dasslers' love for their craft?    

For a full list of sources, see the show notes at timharford.com. 

Check out more Olympics related content from Pushkin Industries and iHeartPodcasts here.

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In the middle of the Pacific Ocean, in 1819, Owen Chase is standing on a slowly sinking ship. It's just been headbutted by an 85 foot whale. It's taking in water. And now the creature is coming back for another go. This is a whaling ship, and Chase is convinced that he observes "fury and vengeance" in the animal.

In 2010, an orca is performing for a crowd at SeaWorld - but he misses his mark and so he doesn't get his reward. That's when he grabs hold of his trainer, Dawn Brancheau, and pulls her under water. By the time he's finished, her savaged body has multiple fractures and dislocations. And her scalp has been ripped off.

To some observers, these whales were surely out for revenge. But how much is what we think we understand about the natural world shaped by human guilt?

For a full list of sources, see the show notes at timharford.com. 

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Tim Harford is joined by Jacob Goldstein to answer your questions. Does winning the lottery make you unhappy? Is Bitcoin bad for the economy? When does correlation imply causation? And what will Tim and Jacob do when the robot overlords come for their jobs?

We love hearing from you, so please keep your questions coming: [email protected].

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Neatly dressed in his suit, Hans Ferdinand Mayer was every inch the unassuming corporate executive. So, when he asked to borrow a typewriter from his hotel in Oslo, nobody could have guessed he would use it for one of the most extraordinary intelligence leaks in history.

Mayer's gloved fingers punched out the details of Nazi Germany's most sensitive military operations and, when he had finished, he immediately dispatched his documents to the British  ?  who did nothing.

Why did the British ignore Mayer? Did they fail to pick out a crucial signal amid the noise of detail ? or was something else going on?

This episode of Cautionary Tales is based, with permission, on Tom Whipple?s book The Battle of the Beams, which is available from all good booksellers.

For a full list of sources, see the show notes at timharford.com.

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Sam Israel had a problem. The investors in his hedge fund, Bayou Capital, were expecting spectacular returns. Sam himself had spent years proclaiming the fund's brilliant results. But in reality, Sam had been marking his own homework, publishing fraudulent accounts and using these to lure in new investors. 

What to do? Well, the logical thing of course: wait around for an extraordinary profitable streak, and in the meantime keep up the ruse...

This episode of Cautionary Tales was recorded live at the Bristol Festival of Economics and studies three incredible investment scams. How do pyramid and ponzi schemes snowball out of control, flattening victim and fraudster alike?

For a full list of sources, see the show notes at timharford.com.

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Bonus: When Spanish conquistadors arrived in Peru in 1526, it was the beginning of the end for the Inca. Their bloody pursuit of gold, fame and fortune was rife with treachery and deceit. Within a few short years, the once-thriving Inca empire had been decimated.

Tim Harford is joined by Dan Snow for a special crossover episode of Cautionary Tales and Dan Snow's History Hit. Tim and Dan first recap the spectacular defeat of the French knights at the Battle of Crécy in 1346, and then draw surprising parallels with the fall of the Inca Empire two centuries later.

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Nicolae Ceau?escu was not beloved. His regime was vicious and he treated Romania as his personal wallet: while Ceau?escu emptied the coffers to construct a vast, ornate palace, his people starved. He imposed disastrous population control policies on his country, too, which saw hundreds of thousands of unwanted children left to rot in squalid orphanages. Ceau?escu's rule endured for a quarter of a century - then crumbled overnight.

How do dictatorships unravel? In a second episode, Tim Harford partners with HBO's new series "The Regime" to investigate real-life dictatorships and the social science that explains them.

For a full list of sources, see the show notes at timharford.com.

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Why are so many autocrats germaphobes? Why was the truth so dangerous for Soviet engineers? And what can salami reveal to us about the mind of Vladimir Putin?

This is the first of two special episodes in partnership with HBO's new series "The Regime". Tim Harford investigates real-life dictatorships and the social science that explains them, drawing on insights from game theory and psychology.

For a full list of sources, see the show notes at timharford.com.

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The Happiness Lab?s Dr. Laurie Santos brings together other Pushkin hosts to mark the International Day of Happiness. Revisionist History?s Malcolm Gladwell talks about the benefits of the misery of running in a Canadian winter. Dr. Maya Shankar from A Slight Change of Plans talks about quieting her mental chatter. And Cautionary Tales host Tim Harford surprises everyone with the happiness lessons to be learned from a colonoscopy.

Hear more of The Happiness Lab HERE.

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Chuck Yeager's plane pitched and rolled as it plummeted from the sky. He grappled with the controls inside the cockpit, but to no avail: he couldn't steady the aircraft. The test pilot was known for his nerves of steel but, as the barren Mojave Desert hurtled towards him, even he was afraid. What to do?

It's tempting to think that adding to our lives - more action, more work, more possessions - will lead to greater success and happiness. But sometimes doing less is the better option, as Chuck Yeager was to learn the hard way.

In their second crossover episode, Tim Harford teams up with Dr Laurie Santos (host of The Happiness Lab) to examine why subtraction can be so challenging and so helpful.

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As US troops approached a Nazi prison camp, they could hear agonized wailing. The stench of rotting flesh filled their nostrils. Moments later they discovered a pile of smoldering corpses, alongside emaciated survivors.

Next to the concentration camp they found something else: tunnels filled with tools ? and partially assembled rockets. The soldiers had hit upon the evil heart of the V2 manufacturing program: enslaved laborers, imprisoned underground.

And the rocket program's director? Wernher von Braun had already fled. He now had just one concern: persuading the Americans to let him switch sides?

For a full list of sources, see the show notes at timharford.com.

Do you have a question for Tim? Send it to [email protected] and we'll do our best to answer it in a Q&A episode.

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In the 1920s, Germany?s Society for Spaceship Travel boasted some of the sharpest scientific minds ? like the incandescently brilliant young Wernher von Braun. But it had very little money, and progress was slow.

Then, in 1932, the army made a proposal: it would fund more serious research if the enthusiasts at the Society would develop a rocket weapon.

Despite a string of failures to launch, von Braun was able to convince key powerbrokers in Nazi Germany that they couldn?t afford to ignore rocket technology. How did he do it? And what happened when the murderous Heinrich Himmler made a play for the rocket program?

For a full list of sources for this episode, visit timharford.com.

Do you have a question for Tim? Send it to [email protected] and we'll do our best to answer it in a Q&A episode.

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At the height of World War Two, British intelligence began receiving reports that the enemy was developing a rocket weapon. The idea seemed fantastical ? resources in Nazi Germany were scarce and a rocket-building program defied economic logic.

But one intelligence chief took the reports of a rocket weapon seriously and he managed to convince Winston Churchill to heed the threat too. The British Prime Minister gave the order to bomb Germany?s rocket factory to rubble, and 600 bomber planes embarked on a full-scale attempt to obliterate it.

From the air, the damage appeared devastating. The British thought they had succeeded in crushing the rocket-building program. But they were wrong.

For a full list of sources, see the show notes at timharford.com.

Do you have a question for Tim? Send it to [email protected] and we'll do our best to answer it in an upcoming Q&A episode.

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Teaser: In 1977, two planes collided on the runway at Tenerife Airport. Why did the crash happen? And, given that it took place on the ground, why didn't more people escape?

In this new two-parter, Tim Harford explores the most deadly aviation accident in history. Both episodes are available now, ad-free, exclusively for subscribers to Pushkin+.

If you're not already a subscriber, you can sign up for Pushkin+ on our Apple podcasts show page, or at pushkin.fm/plus.

Do you have a question for Tim? Send it to [email protected] and we'll do our best to answer it in an upcoming Q&A episode.

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One speechmaker inspired millions with his words, the other utterly destroyed his own multi-million-dollar business with just a few phrases.

Civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr (played by Jeffrey Wright of American Fiction, Westworld and The Hunger Games) and jewelry store owner Gerald Ratner offer a stark contrast on when you should stick to the script - and when you should take a risk.

We're taking a short rest on Cautionary Tales this January. We'll be back again in February, with a treasure chest of gripping, hair-raising tales for your ears. While you wait, we wanted to share some classic episodes from the Cautionary Vault - this is one of our favorites. 

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Torrey Canyon was one of the biggest and best ships in the world - but its captain and crew still needlessly steered it towards a deadly reef known as the Seven Stones. This course seemed like madness, but the type of thinking that resulted in this risky maneuver is something we're all prone to...

We have a treasure chest of Cautionary Tales to bring you in 2024, but first we need to take a short rest. This week we're taking you all the way back to the start, with a classic episode from our Cautionary Tales vault.

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What if you could never have the same day off as your family and friends? Would you quit your job? What if it was the murderous dictator Joseph Stalin giving you the order?

The Soviet Union wanted its factories to run every day, all year long. And so, in 1929, Stalin killed the weekend: workers were prevented from all taking the same day off at the same time.

In this crossover episode of Cautionary Tales and The Happiness Lab, Tim Harford and Yale professor Dr Laurie Santos tell the story of Stalin's curious, calendar-reshaping experiment. They explore what it can teach us about time off even today, and why the holidays matter so very much.

For a full list of sources, visit timharford.com.

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Cautionary Book Club: Mollie Maggia's dentist planned to remove a painful abscess from her mouth. But to his horror, her jawbone disintegrated at his touch, crumbling and splintering until it resembled ash. Like hundreds of her colleagues, Mollie had been slowly poisoned by her work with glowing radium dust. Eight months after her first toothache, she was dead.

In the previous episode, Cautionary Tales told the story of the "Radium Girls". Their employers ignored the horrific side effects of these women's work, resorting to obfuscation and even outright lies to deny their claims that they were getting sick.

In this follow-up interview, Tim Harford sits down with Kate Moore, author of The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women. Tim and Kate discuss how the women banded together and worked out what was happening to them, as well as how they fought back against their powerful bosses and their monumental legacy.

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In Goiânia, Brazil, a junk dealer acquires an old medical device from two scrap-metal scavengers. The device itself isn't useful, but it comes with precious lead which will fetch him good money. There's something else inside the device, too: a curious, crystal-like substance that glows bright blue in the dark.

At first, the dealer is mesmerized by it: he wants to turn it into jewelry for his wife. But, everyone who comes into contact with the magical glitter seems to get sick. His own family succumbs to nausea and vomiting. A doctor suggests food poisoning - but this isn't like any food poisoning they've ever known before. And soon, the whole city is contaminated.

No-one saw this horrifying radiation accident coming. Should they have?

For a full list of sources, please see the show notes at timharford.com.

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Cautionary Conversation: Just before Christmas 1799, President George Washington was riding around his country estate, Mount Vernon, when it began to snow. When he arrived home, guests were waiting for him. Known for his punctuality, he hurried to entertain them -  still clad in his damp clothes.

The next morning, Washington had a sore throat and a chesty cough. His family decided to take a fateful step: they summoned a doctor.

Tim Harford is joined by comedians Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds, hosts of the hugely popular history podcast The Dollop. They discuss the parade of doctors that tended to the ailing Washington, and the various remedies they prescribed - from lamb's blood to a collar of beetles. Tim, Dave and Gareth also look at what happened when cars first hit the streets in the early twentieth century: why did so many cars "turn turtle"? Who were the first jaywalkers? And which British inventor rode around in a giant white stiletto?

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William the Conqueror undertook a remarkably modern project. In 1086, he began compiling and storing a detailed record of his realm: of where everyone lived, what they did and where they came from.

900 years later, the BBC began its own Domesday project, sending school children out to conduct a community survey and collect facts about Britain. This was a people?s database, two decades before Wikipedia. But just a few years later, that interactive digital database was totally unreadable, the information lost.

We tend to take archives for granted ? but preservation doesn't happen by accident; digitisation doesn?t mean that something will last forever. And the erasure of the historical record can have disastrous consequences for humanity...

For a full list of sources, please see the show notes at timharford.com.

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On The Dream, host Jane Marie gets to know the life coaches and gurus who claim they know the secret to living our best lives. Is it all in our mindset? Or our privilege? Or are we all under a spell?

Tim Harford is joined by Jane Marie to talk about who coaching works least well for. Turns out it?s the exact people who could benefit most from it, according to the industry. Dr. Sherman James and Dr. Arline Geronimus discuss the downsides of positive thinking, bootstrapping, and mindset culture. For some people, striving has negative impacts on health and happiness.

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Henry Roan has been shot through the back of his head. The local authorities have found his body slumped over the steering wheel of his car. There's no gun at the scene: this is no suicide - it's brutal murder. And the man who ordered Henry Roan's killing? He claims to be his best friend...

Former Principal Chief of the Osage Nation Jim Roan Gray joins Tim Harford to speak about his great-grandfather Henry Roan. They also discuss the Osage Nation today and Jim's take on the new film Killers of the Flower Moon, directed by Martin Scorsese.

This episode of Cautionary Tales was produced in association with Apple Original Films. Killers of the Flower Moon stars William Belleau as Henry Roan, Robert DeNiro, Leonardo DiCaprio and Lily Gladstone.

Do you have a question for Tim? Please email any queries you might have, however big or small, to [email protected].

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Minnie Smith grew sick quite suddenly. She had been young, fit and healthy - and the doctors were baffled when she died. "A peculiar wasting illness," they called it. Then, her sister Anna went missing. Her rotting corpse was found a week later, a bullet hole through her skull. When a third sister, Rita, was blown up in her own bed, a grim pattern was clear: the family was being targeted.

Lawman Tom White strode into town to investigate - and uncovered a vicious plot that chilled him to the bone...

This episode is based on David Grann's book, Killers of the Flower Moon, and is the first of two cautionary tales produced in association with Apple Original Films. The film of the same title is in movie theaters now. It's directed by Martin Scorsese and stars Robert DeNiro, Leonardo DiCaprio and Lily Gladstone.

Next week, we'll hear more on this story from former Principal Chief of the Osage Nation Jim Roan Gray.

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This week, we've twice the storytelling fun for you: two Cautionary Tales shorts, previously only available to Pushkin+ subscribers.

A Monkey for Mayor: It was supposed to be a publicity stunt, but when the man who dressed as Hartlepool United?s monkey mascot stood in a mayoral election... he won. Actual politicians predicted disaster - since thousands of workers and millions of dollars were now in the hands of a complete novice.

But H?Angus the Monkey proved to be a more effective leader than anyone had predicted, raising interesting questions about how we select the best people to be our managers and our mayors.

And

A Screw Loose At 17,000 Feet: Can you tell the difference between an A211-7D bolt and an A211-8C? Well, nor could the tired and stressed engineer fitting a cockpit windshield to Flight 5390. The difference is tiny, but the consequences of muddling them up - which played out at 17,000 ft - were dramatic.

Such design flaws are common - and result in far more loose aircraft windows than you would imagine.

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Why are board games so popular in Germany? What?s Tim Harford?s top tip for productivity? And where do all those sound effects come from?

Tim is joined by Cautionary Tales? very own wizard of sound Pascal Wyse, to read your emails and answer your questions.

Do you have a question for Tim? Please email any queries you might have, however big or small, to [email protected].

Please note that some emails in this episode have been edited for length.

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The longest running television series of the 20th century was Gunsmoke, a western set in the notorious Dodge City, Kansas. Malcolm sweeps away mountains of legal scholarship to make a bold claim: The simplest explanation for the Supreme?s Court?s puzzling run of gun rights decisions may be that the justices watched too much Gunsmoke when they were growing up. Enjoy this episode from Revisionist History, another Pushkin Industries podcast.

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1957. Jørn Utzon receives a phone call: he's just won an international competition to design a brand new opera house for the Australian city of Sydney. Utzon is unknown in the field, so this is a triumph. The young architect couldn?t have imagined what a bitter victory it would turn out to be...

The Guggenheim in Bilbao; the Burj Khalifa in Dubai; the Shard in London. These days, everyone seems to want an iconic building. But Sydney Opera House was the first, the greatest ? and the most painful. It's now fifty years since the Opera House was opened. This is its origin story.

For a full list of sources, please see the show notes at timharford.com. 

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Cautionary Book Club: When Morgan Stanley offered to lease Chicago's parking meters for the princely sum of $1 billion, the City Council were convinced that they had struck gold. They hastily signed the deal. But they soon learnt that they hadn't just traded away parking revenue - they had traded away the streets themselves...

In this hybrid episode of Cautionary Tales, Tim Harford first tells the story of the Chicago parking metres fiasco of 2008. In the second half, Tim is joined by Henry Grabar, author of Paved Paradise, to discuss the lessons we can glean from Chicago's deal with Wall Street, and why parking is such an emotive issue for so many.

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1812. A band of "Luddites" is laying siege to a textile mill in the North of England, under cover of night. They plan to destroy the machines that are replacing their jobs. But mill owner William Cartwright is prepared: he's fortified his factory with skilled marksmen, fearsome eighteen-inch metal spikes and barrels of sulphuric acid.

Today "Luddite" is a term of mockery ? a description for someone who's scared of technology. But in 1812, Luddism was no laughing matter for the likes of Cartwright. And he plans to teach the intruders a lesson.

For a full list of sources for this episode, please visit timharford.com.

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Cautionary Conversation: Andy Warhol?s assistant, Gerard Malanga, is facing a long prison sentence in Italy. He?s forged several Che Guevara portraits and tried to pass them off as genuine Warhols. What happens next is a landmark event in the history of art and authenticity?

Tim Harford is joined by Alice Sherwood, author of Authenticity, to discuss truth and fakery in modern times. Today, authenticity seems to matter more than ever ? and yet we?re also constantly assailed by people and products that are not what they seem. What?s going on here? And what?s the attention economy got to do with it?

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Heroic explorer Frederick Cook has just returned from the very roof of the world, the first man to reach the North Pole. Or so he says. Journalist Philip Gibbs has been watching him, and he?s convinced he?s lying.

When Gibbs publishes that belief, he stands alone. Cook has a gripping manner and an excellent reputation: his winning tale must be true. Diners boo Gibbs at a restaurant, newspapers publish sly-looking caricatures of him, and he even receives threats of violence.

But then, everything changes.

We often think of polarisation as a modern problem ? but the story of Cook and Gibbs has much to teach us here.

For a full list of sources for this episode, please visit timharford.com.

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Cautionary Conversation: Did a Nazi put America on the moon? To celebrate the launch of his mini-series on the V-2 rocket, Tim Harford sits down with Pushkin?s resident V-2 expert, Ryan Dilley. They discuss the so-called ?Father of Space Travel?, Wernher von Braun, and satirist Tom Lehrer?s musical lampooning of him.

A three-part mini series on the V-2 rocket is available now for Pushkin+ subscribers. We?ll be back again on August 4th with a brand new episode of Cautionary Tales on the main feed.

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Henry Petroski is one of Tim Harford's favourite fellow nerds. His study of engineering failures has profoundly influenced Tim's own writing, including the classic Cautionary Tales episode Death on the Dance Floor.

Petroski passed away in June 2023, at the age of 81. This week, in honour of the late great engineer, Tim looks back at the catastrophic Kansas City Hyatt Regency disaster of 1981. The hotel's space-age sky walks -- 60 tonnes of glass, concrete and steel -- crashed down onto the heads of revellers in the atrium below. 114 people died. What was to blame?

For a full list of sources for this episode, please visit timharford.com.

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Cautionary Conversation: An invasive parakeet species began spreading in New York City - and the government decided to kill every last bird. Tim Harford is joined by Ben Naddaff-Hafrey, host of The Last Archive, to talk about the great parakeet panic of the 1970s and a history of anxieties about population growth.

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?If you can make one heap of all your winnings and risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss..."

Those words - from Rudyard Kipling's poem "If" - were based on charismatic nineteenth century doctor, Leander Starr Jameson. In Britain, Jameson was worshipped as a plucky hero: a bastion of courage and mental fortitude. Ironically, he was also responsible for the Jameson Raid, a South African coup that was an unmitigated disaster.

Kipling's champion might have spearheaded a fiasco - but could the poem "If" hold clues for triumph in another arena?

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Today, the idea of controlling the weather is controversial. Scientists who research geoengineering have even received death threats. But once upon a time, people were optimistic about remaking the climate in entire regions of the world. They approached this science with a touching faith in the power of human creativity.

Absent-minded genius Irving Langmuir was one such scientist. He dreamt of making deserts bloom and conjuring rain from an arid sky. He even believed that his experiments with a hurricane had succeeded in redirecting its path.

Why did we stop trying to control the weather? And might geoengineering help us solve climate change - or have we missed our chance?

For a full list of sources, please visit timharford.com.

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Today, we're sharing an episode of the gripping Pushkin series Lost Hills: The Dark Prince. The brand-new season takes a deep dive into the surf world to explore the legacy of Malibu's Dark Prince: Miki Dora. A surfer known for his style, grace and aggression, he ruled Malibu from the 1950s to the 1970s. Celebrated for his rebellious spirit, he was also a conman who led the FBI on a 7-year manhunt around the world.

Episodes 1 and 2 are out now: https://apple.co/losthills. And of course, if you'd like to binge all of the season 3 episodes early and ad free, make sure you subscribe to Pushkin+.

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CIA agents in Havana complaining of mental fog, dizziness and ear pain in 2016. Children in Miami in 1974, hyperventilating and wracked with abdominal pain. A medieval outbreak of the ?dancing plague?. A chorus of meowing nuns.

These mysterious and seemingly disparate events may have a simple explanation ? and one that?s often overlooked when it comes to understanding strange new syndromes.

For a full list of sources used in this episode visit Tim Harford.com.

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Why does economics get a bad rap? How did a small Hungarian airline wreak havoc in the 2000s?

What cautionary tales can we glean from Tim?s own life? And what?s his favourite role-playing game?

You sent in your questions and now - with the help of podcasting maestro Jacob Goldstein (What?s Your Problem?) - Tim is answering them.

Do you have a question for Tim? Please email any queries you might have, however big or small, to [email protected].

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You can gamble on horses or on the turn of a card - but Daniel Gould made a living betting on the outcome of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. Daniel made a profit because he studied the voting history of the competition, as well as the cultural and geo-political factors that predict which songs will triumph and which will score "nil point".    

In 2018, Daniel was so sure of his system of reducing the risk that he took out a loan on his home and bet it on Israel's song to win...  only to see the entry from Cyprus suddenly rocketing up the leader board. Was Daniel about to lose everything?

For a full list of sources used in this episode visit Tim Harford.com

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Anna Marie Jarvis wanted a national holiday to honor the dedication and sacrifice of America's mothers. She wasn't the first person to propose a Mother's Day - but her campaign caught the imagination of the people and the ears of the politicians.

Congress officially recognised Jarvis's Mother's Day in 1914 - but the indefatigable campaigner had allied herself with businessmen with vested interests in such an annual event. Mother's Day soon span out of its creator's control and caused an embittered Jarvis no end of heartache.      

For a full list of sources used in this episode visit Tim Harford.com

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It could cure any 'female ailment' - even cancer - said the adverts. But Lydia E. Pinkham?s Vegetable Compound was, in fact, just a concoction of herbs and alcohol of no proven medicinal merit. That didn't stop desperate American women from buying bottles of the stuff - and writing to Lydia Pinkham for medical advice.  

Why did her customers shun 'expert' doctors and opt instead for quack medicines? And why, when Lydia Pinkham finally came in for criticism, did no one question the efficacy of her vegetable compound?  

For a full list of sources for this episode, go to timharford.com.

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Cautionary Conversation: In 1990, a small extremist group launched a nerve gas attack on passengers riding the Tokyo subway. Thousands of people were hurt, more than a dozen died. At the time, such use of a chemical weapon seemed new and uniquely terrifying.

But advances in biology mean that today it's possible such a group could create a virus like Covid... with the potential to kill millions. What are the dangers and what can we do to combat them? Tim Harford talks to writer Michael Specter about his new book Higher Animals: Vaccines, Synthetic Biology and the Future of Life.

(Higher Animals: Vaccines, Synthetic Biology and the Future of Life is is available now at Pushkin.fm, Audible, or wherever audiobooks are sold.) 

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Air traffic controllers are meant to stop aircrafts from flying into one another... and if they fail, computer systems are installed to warn pilots of a coming collision. But sometimes these humans and computers give conflicting and confusing advice. Who to believe?

When a cargo plane and a Russian airliner collided in just such a situation, the authorities scrambled to work out how to prevent a repeat of the disaster... but a grieving father decided to seek revenge on those he held responsible. 

For a full list of sources for this episode, go to timharford.com.

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Cautionary Conversation: When a small-town detective gets a tip about a missing woman, he believes he's uncovered a highly-trained chameleon: a foreign spy. Soon, Esther Reed is on the Secret Service's Most Wanted list, and a nationwide manhunt has commenced. But all is not as it seems.

Jake Halpern joins Tim Harford to talk about the latest season of his Pushkin podcast Deep Cover: Never Seen Again. They discuss the dangers of incrementally increasing lies; how and why certain stories are escalated up the media "food chain"; and what it takes to lead a double life.

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In the early 90s, cutting-edge advertising agency Chiat/Day announced a radical plan, aimed at giving the company a jolt of creative renewal. They would sweep away corner offices and cubicles and replace them with zany open spaces, as well as innovative portable computers and phones. A brand new era of ?hot-desking? had arrived.

Problems quickly began. Disgruntled employees found themselves hauling temperamental, clunky laptops and armfuls of paperwork all over the office; some even had to use the trunks of their cars as filing cabinets. Soon, the unhappy nomads had had enough.

Bad execution was to blame for the failure of this ?playful? workspace. But Chiat/Day had made another mistake here, too ? one that was more serious, more fundamental and altogether more common.

For a full list of sources for this episode, go to timharford.com.

Listener questions

Tim is taking your questions. Do you have any queries about one of the stories we've covered? Are you curious about how we make the show? Send in your questions, however big or small, and Tim will do his best to answer them in a special Q&A episode.

You can email your question to [email protected] or leave a voice note at 914-984-7650. Please be aware that if you're calling from outside the US international rates will apply.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

With the 95th Academy Awards just around the corner, Tim Harford looks back at a basic lesson. Galileo tried to teach us that adding more and more layers to a system intended to avert disaster often makes catastrophe all the more likely. This principle has been ignored in nuclear power plants, financial markets and at the Oscars... all resulting in chaos.

For a full list of sources for this episode, go to timharford.com.

Listener questions

Tim is taking your questions. Do you have any queries about one of the stories we've covered? Are you curious about how we make the show?  Send in your questions, however big or small, and Tim will do his best to answer them in a special Q&A episode.

You can email your question to [email protected] or leave a voice note at 914-984-7650. That's a US number, so please be aware that if you're calling from outside the US international rates will apply.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.