99% Invisible

Angie Bond-Simpson, SRP resource planner, and Gretchen Bakke, anthropologist and grid author, unpack how Phoenix keeps power flowing when extreme heat makes outages dangerous. They trace electricity from plant to plug. They explore the Western Grid, real-time balancing at 60 hertz, day-ahead forecasting, and why balloons, crashes, and brutal heat can threaten a city’s fragile margin for error.

Rachel Gordon, policy and communications director at San Francisco Public Works, gets into San Francisco’s litter puzzle. She talks trash can placement and a 2017 experiment that flooded intersections with bins. Then the conversation turns to why more cans failed, how vandalism shaped a nine-year redesign, and why street cleanliness became a civic flashpoint.

Jill Lepore, Harvard historian and New Yorker writer, dives into why the Constitution was built to change. She explores Article V, why amending it now feels nearly impossible, and how failed amendments reveal public demands. The conversation also tracks originalism, the Supreme Court’s growing power, Reconstruction as a second founding, and the dramatic collapse of Electoral College reform.

Salida Reynolds, LA Metro’s Chief Innovation Officer and former traffic signal chief, dives into why red lights can feel endless in Los Angeles. She explores the Olympic origins of ATSAC, how a control room manages thousands of signals, why timing is part engineering and part psychology, and why some cursed intersections still resist every fix.

Samantha Pierce, a veteran NYC 311 supervisor, and Joseph Morrisrow, the city official overseeing 311, unpack the hidden machinery behind a simple call. They trace how complaints become tickets, why operators ask so many questions, and how weird calls, noise battles, and even mystery smells reveal how a city thinks.

David Barron, science journalist and author of The Martians, gives a brisk tour of the late-19th/early-20th-century Martian craze and Percival Lowell’s role. He traces the origin of the famous canals, telescope limits and optical illusions. The story covers public spectacle, media hype, recantations by scientists, and parallels to modern misinformation.

Deva Sobel, author and historian who explains the long struggle to solve longitude. Kelly Prime, field reporter who brings shipwrecks and island wayfinding to life. They recount deadly naval disasters, the obsessive clockmaker who reinvented navigation, maritime trials of sea clocks, and Polynesian non‑instrument wayfinding using stars, birds and waves.

Rob Bonta, California Attorney General and former state legislator who leads legal fights defending state policies. He discusses using Article IV and the 10th Amendment to push back on federal overreach. Short takes cover sanctuary and immigration noncooperation, state authority to investigate federal agents, protecting abortion access and data, multistate legal coordination, and concerns about election integrity and militarized policing.

Shirley Wong, a radio reporter who did the on-the-ground reporting, narrates the story of Australia’s Dingo Barrier Fence. She traces its origin as protection for sheep and rabbit control. Short scenes cover the fence’s construction, its huge ecological split across the land, maintenance and costs, and the fraught politics and cultural debates around dingoes and conservation.

Alberto, a local street promoter in Los Algodones who recruits dental tourists, gives a first-hand look at life in Molar City. He describes his tactics, competition, and performing an American persona on the street. Short scenes show the town’s dental boom, tourist culture, safety image work, and the emotional toll of border proximity.