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The digital duo Josh and Chuck deconstruct your world.
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Recent Postings by Category
BrainStuff
- Thank You and Best Wishes to Marshall Brain
- Contest – Design a $300 house and win $25,000
- How the Philtrum works – the place under your nose where your face comes together
The Coolest Stuff on the Planet
- Glass Beach: The Ocean Recycles Bottles into Colorful Pebbles
- California 1: The Most Beautiful Road Trip
- Sun, Sand and a Passenger Jet Coming Right for You
Keep Asking
- Why can a 5 foot 8 inch man dunk a basketball on a 10 foot rim while some people of taller stature can’t?
- What happens to our sun once it runs out of fuel?
- How do we know the age of the universe?
Stuff Mom Never Told You
- Who invented the Christmas card?
- How the Kinsey Report Fueled Whiskey Sales
- How to Get Your Wedding Announcement into The New York Times
Stuff to Blow Your Mind
- Blow Your Mind: Mitochondrial Eve
- Blow Your Mind: The Skin We Live In
- Blow Your Mind: Nebula in a Box
Stuff You Should Know
- Stuff You Should Know at SXSW
- The Southern Death Cult, the Maya and Georgia
- Deformed Baby Spider Brains
The Stuff of Genius
CarStuff
- Listener Mail: What’s the world’s largest engine?
- Listener Mail: What makes a “classic car” classic?
- Was Chrysler’s “It’s Halftime in America” Super Bowl commercial a little too political?
How-to Stuff
- How to Enjoy the Fruits of Your Labor
- How to Travel the World in 4 Days
- How to Smell Like Someone at HowStuffWorks
PopStuff
- PopStuff Show Notes: Episode 70: Weddings
- PopStuff Show Notes: Episode 69: Perfume: The Culture of Scent
- PopStuff Show Notes: Episode 68: Astrology: What’s PopStuff’s Sign?
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know
- Good News from the Oldest Mayan Calendar
- One Year Later: Colony Collapse Disorder
- Who Killed Martin Luther King, Jr.?
Stuff to Change the World
- Who will own the Arctic?
- Obesity: The New Global Crisis
- Bill Gates Makes For A Pretty Decent Cartoon
Stuff You Missed in History Class
- A Visit to Clybourne Park: The Hansberry Connection
- A Visit to Clybourne Park: This Old House
- Butch Cassidy: Should we read between the lines?
Josh Clark
Oh, gotcha. I thought you were saying these people were paying for this research out of their own paychecks or something.
Chuck Bryant
No, but they’ve sunk $7.2 pounds that I guess the public didn’t know. They thought it was off the table, so they’re kind of in some hot water there.
Josh Clark
They’re in some deep quicksand.
Chuck Bryant
Yeah, they said Gordon Brown and Allister Darling have been caught red-handed planning a spy in the sky system of – spy in the sky.
Josh Clark
Nice. Yeah because – I guess we should probably explain congestion pricing. Basically, every car on the road, I guess when you would go get your vehicle tag or something, you also get a radio frequency identifier, and as you’re driving, some satellite is tracking where you pass through some sector or something like that. All of a sudden, you’re in a toll area, and much like, say, one of those toll passes, you are sent a bill, or you have to set up a credit card or a bank account, attach that to your tag, and it just draws money from it based on however much you drive in there.
In Singapore, when they first instituted there’s, and actually in 1995, they had a flat rate for downtown, which is the most congested. During peak hours, you had to pay $3.00 to just drive around down town. You could drive around all you wanted. And as they’ve gotten better at it, they’re getting a little fancy shmancy with it, like, well, if you want to drive here, it’s $1.75 for 20 minutes, but two blocks over it’s just .50 cents, and so on.
Chuck Bryant
Well, that’s one of the rubs. One of the big things is, in England at least, and in other places too, I think they’ve suggested paying more for peak hour so it would be flexible in your work schedule. But then, of course, people that are a friend of the poor say that’s progressive taxation because white collar dudes can be all flexible and work from home, but the poor have to get up and go to work during peak hours, so they’re basically paying for the road that the rich man drives on last.
Josh Clark
Exactly. That’s exactly right, and that’s the big problem, I mean, aside from having to pay to drive with a congestion tax. What else can you do, Chuck, and also remember we were talking – this isn’t just highways, it’s surface streets too, everybody, don’t get all anxious; we’re talking about surface streets as well.