Found in the Machine

In March 1965, two Soviet cosmonauts fell out of the sky into a frozen forest in the Urals, trapped inside a cramped capsule hundreds of kilometers from rescue. Their survival, and their journey home, relied on an intricate mechanical computer made of aluminum, clockwork, and paper.  In this Episode Laboratory 47: the branch of the Soviet Flight Research Institute in Zhukovsky, run by engineer Sergei DarevskyThe Globus: the indicator of position in flight, a paper-wrapped aluminum globe run by differential gears and cams with orbital curves ground into their edgesDead reckoning in spaceflight: why the instrument knew nothing it wasn't told and what that meant for the cosmonautsVoskhod 2: Pavel Belyayev and Alexey Leonov, a spacewalk that nearly ended in catastrophe, a failed automatic descent, and the forty-six seconds that decided where they landedEpisode Music Jay Opie / Nihilore, CC BY 4.0Satellites and WaterfallsSomething Beautiful is Going to HappenAlways Surrounded, Never ThereWho Will Listen on a Dying PlanetAdditional Reading Becker, J. (2026, June 7). Spaceflight mission report: Voskhod 2. Spacefacts. https://www.spacefacts.de/mission/english/voskhod-2.htm Leonov, A. (2005, January). The nightmare of Voskhod 2. Air & Space Magazine. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/the-nightmare-of-voskhod-2-8655378/ Shirriff, K. (2023, January 21). Inside the Globus INK: A mechanical navigation computer for Soviet spaceflight. Ken Shirriff's Blog. https://www.righto.com/2023/01/inside-globus-ink-mechanical-navigation.html Tiapchenko, Y. (2003). Information display systems for Russian spacecraft: An overview (S. Gerovitch, Comp. & Trans.). Computing in the Soviet Space Program, MIT. https://web.mit.edu/slava/space/essays/essay-tiapchenko1.htm Voskhod 2. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved September 1, 2026, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Voskhod_2&oldid=1350315400 Support the show 💚 This show is independently produced. You can support the show by joining the show's Patreon. Patreon members get access to "Found in the Margins" bonus episodes and help make the show possible. You can also donate via Buy Me a Coffee. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And don't forget to sign up to receive Notes from the Machine with each episode.

Found in the Margins is a series of mini bonus episodes that will be available to Patreon members every other week alternating with the main show. This first episode is being shared here for all Found in the Machine listeners.  Join the Patreon if you'd like to continue hearing these bonus stories.  This episode explores the creation of Mortal Kombat, the strange reality of early video game digitization, and the landmark 1990s lawsuit that decided who legally owns a human body once it becomes pixels.  Episode Music Jay Opie / Nihilore, CC BY 4.0TricksFailures of InfinityTechno Syndrome (Mortal Kombat) by The Immortals via Luminous Ambition Additional Reading Pesina v. Midway Mfg. Co., 948 F. Supp. 40 (N.D. Ill. 1996). https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/948/40/2098879/Strata. (1994, July). [Advertisement for the arcade game BloodStorm]. EGM 2. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Daniel-Pesina-who-starred-as-Johnny-Cage-in-Mortal-Kombat-has-switched-to_fig11_357487546C-SPAN. (2013, November 27). 1993 Senate committee hearings on video game violence [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhwM3ZMTCR0-- Support the show 💚 This show is independently produced. You can support the show by joining the show's Patreon. Patreon members get access to "Found in the Margins" bonus episodes and help make the show possible. You can also donate via Buy Me a Coffee. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And don't forget to sign up to receive Notes from the Machine with each episode.

Since the 1890s, we've been building machines that wait in our place, in the dark, for something to move. This is the story of how a thread across a trail became a sensor that can feel heat, and what we learn when we really look.  In this Episode George Shiras: the Michigan naturalist and early wildlife photographer who rigged the first trip-wire camera traps in the 1890sPyroelectricity: the physical property that lets a crystal generate a faint electrical charge when its temperature changesThe Fresnel lens: how a design borrowed from 19th-century lighthouses now focuses invisible infrared light onto motion sensors in camera traps, driveway floodlights, and burglar alarmsThe Haíɫzaqv Nation's coastal wolfs: How a camera trap on the coast caught a wolf doing something scientists didn't know wild wolves were capable ofMachine learning classifiers: how citizen scientists trains algorithms to sort real animal sightings from the false alarms Colorado's gray wolf reintroduction: the closely monitored 2023 reintroduction effort and recent events  Episode Music Jay Opie / Nihilore, CC BY 4.0Hands Clasped at the End of the WorldMagentaThe Murky DeepStill Waters Keep Me AwakeYou Saw the Signs But Never Acknowledged Them Additional Reading Cecco, L. (2025, November 20). Raiders of the lobster pot: Wily wolves learn to haul in Canadian crab traps. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/nov/20/canadia-british-coumbia-sea-wolves-learn-to-loot-crab-traps-for-bait Davenport, J. (2025, August 31). Wolf encounters & insights: 2025 newsletter. Churchill Wild. https://churchillwild.com/wolf-encounters-insights-2025-newsletter-by-jad-davenport/ Keller, H. J. (2000, May 11). 30 years of passive infrared motion detectors: A technology review [Paper presentation]. OPTO/IRS2, Erfurt, Germany. https://jvs.de/Carclo_Fresnel/pdf_content/2000-05_irs2paper_Hans_j_Keller.pdf Longwell, A. (2025, July 17). WATCH: Colorado Parks and Wildlife shares first footage of state's newest wolf pups. Vail Daily.  https://www.vaildaily.com/news/colorado-wolf-pup-video-routt-county/ Ross, T. (2026, August 10). Colorado hunter thought wolf shot and killed in January was a coyote. The Colorado Sun. https://coloradosun.com/2026/08/10/colorado-hunter-kills-wolf-thinking-it-coyote/ Shiras, G., III. (1906, July). Photographing wild game with flashlight and camera. The National Geographic Magazine, 17(7), 367–423. Shiras, G., III. (1908, June). One season's game-bag with the camera. The National Geographic Magazine, 19(6). Shiras, G., III. (1935). Hunting wild life with camera and flashlight: A record of sixty-five years' visits to the woods and waters of North America (Vols. 1–2). National Geographic Society. https://archive.org/details/HuntingWildLifeWithCameraAndFlashlight.Volume121935Copy Slade, R. (2026, June 4). The outdoorsman who made wildlife photography a big deal for National Geographic. National Geographic. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/george-shiras-iii-wildlife-photography -- Support the show 💚 This show is independently produced. You can support the show by joining the show's Patreon. Patreon members get access to "Found in the Margins" bonus episodes and help make the show possible. You can also donate via Buy Me a Coffee. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And don't forget to sign up to receive Notes from the Machine with each episode.

In 1944 the Allies needed to know exactly what the water would do on a coast called "Position Z." So a deaf mathematician and six young women in a basement near Liverpool calculated the future.   In this episode Arthur Doodson: the deaf mathematician at the Liverpool Tidal Institute, the world's leading authority on tides, who guessed he was predicting a Normandy landing and said nothingSix women working as Computers: hired for their diligence, skill with numbers, and neat handwriting, they ran the harmonic analysis and operated the tide-predicting machinesThe tide predicting machines: the Bidston Kelvin machine and the Roberts Légé machine, analogue computers made of brass, gears, and pulleys.D-Day: The largest seaborne invasion in history Episode Music Jay Opie / Nihilore, CC BY 4.0House of Skies pt2Are You HappyBurnt FieldsToska Additional Notes For the group photo of the women who calculated the tides after the war, and for what didn’t make it into this episode, visit notes.foundinthemachine.com. Special thank you to Angelina at the Bidston Observatory who responded to my inquiries as I looked for the women's names. Bidston Observatory has been converted into an artistic research centre and more information about it can be found here.   Additional Reading Bidston Lighthouse. (2017, March 8). Women in the workplace. http://www.bidstonlighthouse.org.uk/women-in-the-workplace/ Carlsson-Hyslop, A. E. (2010). An anatomy of storm surge science at Liverpool Tidal Institute 1919-1959: Forecasting, practices of calculation and patronage [Doctoral dissertation, University of Manchester]. NERC Open Research Archive. https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/14623/ Friends of Bidston Hill. (n.d.). Bidston Observatory. http://www.bidstonhill.org.uk/heritage/trail08/ Parker, B. B. (2011). The tide predictions for D-Day. Physics Today, 64(9), 35-40. https://doi.org/10.1063/PT.3.1257 Scoffield, J. (2016, November 9). My early life at Bidston Observatory. Bidston Observatory in Retrospect. http://www.bidstonobservatory.org.uk/early-life/ Woodworth, P. L. (2020). Tide prediction machines at the Liverpool Tidal Institute. History of Geo- and Space Sciences, 11(1), 15-29. https://doi.org/10.5194/hgss-11-15-2020 Woodworth, P. L. (2015, December). Bidston Observatory and its tide prediction machines. Bidston Observatory in Retrospect. http://www.bidstonobservatory.org.uk/tide-prediction-machines/ -- Support the show 💚 This show is independently produced. You can support the show by joining the show's Patreon. Patreon members get access to "Found in the Margins" bonus episodes and help make the show possible. You can also donate via Buy Me a Coffee. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And don't forget to sign up to receive Notes from the Machine with each episode.

This is the story of how we learned to fake the most natural thing in the world. What it cost us. And the strange places we still go, even now, to steal a little of the real thing back.  In this Episode Bernice Brown: the RAND statistician whose job was to hunt for a pattern inside a million digits and sign her name only when she could not find oneThe electronic roulette wheel: RAND's random number making machine and why its raw output drifted into biasStanisław Ulam: the mathematician whose card game in a hospital bed became the Monte Carlo method, and the reason anyone needed randomness by the millions in the first placeJohn von Neumann: the middle square method, and the resulting "state of sin" Episode Music Jay Opie / Nihilore, CC BY 4.0 Warmth Sounds Computer History Museum Sounds of the 1960s: The IBM 1410  CuriousMarc 1964 IBM 029 keypunch card punching demonstration  Additional Reading  Brown, B. (1948). Some tests of the randomness of a million digits (Paper No. P-44). RAND Corporation. https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/papers/2008/P44.pdf Iowa State College Statistical Laboratory. (1935). Annual report of the statistical laboratory: July 1, 1933 to June 30, 1934. Iowa State College. https://isuu00001library102stg.blob.core.windows.net/digital-objects/statsannualreports/pdf/statsannualreports3414.pdf Markoff, J. (1995, September 19). Security flaw is discovered in software used in shopping. The New York Times, p. A1. https://archive.ph/Hz0pX Mercator, V. (2023, October 1). The middle squares method: The first PRNG. VM's Numbers Station. https://vm70.neocities.org/posts/2023-10-01-middle-squares/ RAND Corporation. (2001). A million random digits with 100,000 normal deviates (MR-1418-RC). https://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1418.html Summerscales, O. (2023, November 1). Hitting the jackpot: The birth of the Monte Carlo method. Actinide Research Quarterly. https://www.lanl.gov/media/publications/actinide-research-quarterly/1123-hitting-the-jackpot-the-birth-of-the-monte-carlo-method  -- Support the show 💚 This show is independently produced. You can support the show by joining the show's Patreon. Patreon members get access to "Found in the Margins" bonus episodes and help make the show possible. You can also donate via Buy Me a Coffee. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And don't forget to sign up to receive Notes from the Machine with each episode.

A brutalist fortress in San Francisco serves as a vital artery for the American internet. In 2003, AT&T technician Mark Klein started noticing strange things on the sixth floor of that building. Strange things about Room 641A. This is a story about the infrastructure we look past, government mass surveillance, and why the machine Mark discovered never actually turned off. In this Episode Mark Klein: An AT&T technician and NSA whistleblower whose sworn declaration exposed the US government's warrantless domestic surveillance programFiber Tapping: The simple physics behind fiber optic splitting and how it's used to duplicate internet traffic without leaving a traceHepting v. AT&T: The class action lawsuit built on Klein's evidence, and how retroactive immunity dismantled it Episode Music Jay Opie / Nihilore, CC BY 4.0Hopeless LithromanticOur Time is ShortThrone of the SoulGirl in the MoonArchival Audio FRONTLINE. (2008, May 19). Room 641a [Video]. PBS. https://www.pbs.org/video/frontline-room-641a/Bush, G.W. (2005, December 17). President's radio address [Video]. The White House. https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2005/12/20051217.html Additional Reading Cohn, C. (2026, April 30). The whistleblower who uncovered the NSA's "big brother machine." The MIT Press Reader. https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/the-whistleblower-who-uncovered-the-nsas-big-brother-machine/ Electronic Frontier Foundation. (2014, August 9). How the NSA's domestic spying program works. https://www.eff.org/nsa-spying/how-it-works FISA Amendments Act of 2008: Congress grants telecommunications companies retroactive immunity from civil suits for complying with NSA terrorist surveillance program. (2009). Harvard Law Review, 122(4), 1271–1278. https://harvardlawreview.org/print/vol-122/congress-grants-telecommunications-companies-retroactive-immunity-from-civil-suits-for-complying-with-nsa-terrorist-surveillance-program-ae-fisa-amendments-act-of-2008-pub-l-no-110-261/ Harris, B. (2025, June 12). What is inside Room 641A. Covert Access Team. https://covertaccessteam.substack.com/p/what-is-inside-room-641a Klein, M. (2007). Public unredacted Klein declaration [Legal declaration]. Electronic Frontier Foundation. https://www.eff.org/document/public-unredacted-klein-declaration Klein, M. (2009). Wiring up the big brother machine... and fighting it. BookSurge Publishing. (Bookshop.org affiliate link) Marcus, J. S. (2006). Declaration of J. Scott Marcus in support of plaintiffs' motion for preliminary injunction [Court filing]. Hepting v. AT&T Corp., No. C-06-0672-JCS (N.D. Cal.). Electronic Frontier Foundation. http://www.eff.org/legal/cases/att/SER_marcus_decl.pdf McDaniel, E. (2026, June 12). A key U.S. spy tool has lapsed — now what? NPR. https://www.npr.org/2026/06/12/nx-s1-5856291/fisa-702-surveillance-expiration-bill-pulte New, W. (2003, September 25). Congress funds Defense, kills Terrorism Information Awareness. Government Executive. https://www.govexec.com/defense/2003/09/congress-funds-defense-kills-terrorism-information-awareness/15051/ -- Support the show 💚 This show is independently produced. You can support the show by joining the show's Patreon. Patreon members get access to "Found in the Margins" bonus episodes and help make the show possible. You can also donate via Buy Me a Coffee. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And don't forget to sign up to receive Notes from the Machine with each episode.

Sheet music has always been an invisible treaty. A shared language that belongs to everyone and no one. But fifty years ago, as musicians began shaping sound out of raw electricity, that treaty fell apart. In this episode The Broken Treaty: Why early synthesizers from different manufacturers couldn't talk to each other, and the resulting landscape of incompatible voltages.The Unlikely Alliance: How Dave Smith in the US (Sequential Circuits) and Ikutaro Kakehashi in Japan (Roland) looked past corporate rivalry to build a universal standard.The Birth of MIDI: How microscopic 1981 microprocessors forced engineers to shrink the musical universe into elegant, lightweight digital sentences.Juan Atkins: the Detroit musician whose work sparked the global rise of techno music. Episode Music Jay Sebastian BachPrelude No. 1 in C majorJames Opie / Nihilore, CC BY 4.0Bright Lights of Summer Our Ships Line the Ocean FloorDisconnectedAlfonseKorg MS 10Donghyuk HeoJohann Sebastian Bach, Prelude No. 1 in C major, BWV 846, on Modular SynthesizerAdditional Reading Billias, A. (2024, December 21). MIDI history chapter 6: MIDI begins 1981-1983. The MIDI Association. https://midi.org/midi-history-chapter-6-midi-begins-1981-1983 Doyle, T. (2024, November). Classic tracks: Model 500 'No UFOs'. Sound on Sound. https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/classic-tracks-model-500-no-ufos Stewart, D. (2014, December 3). Technical Grammy Award: Ikutaro Kakehashi and Dave Smith. Recording Academy. https://www.grammy.com/news/technical-grammy-award-ikutaro-kakehashi-and-dave-smith/ MIDI Manufacturers Association. (1996, February). MIDI 1.0 detailed specification (Version 4.2.1). https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ewRrvMEFRPlKon6nfSCxqnTMEu70sz0c/view -- Support the show 💚 This show is independently produced. You can support the show by joining the show's Patreon. Patreon members get access to "Found in the Margins" bonus episodes and help make the show possible. You can also donate via Buy Me a Coffee. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And don't forget to sign up to receive Notes from the Machine with each episode.

In 1916, a tired chemist in a Berlin laboratory accidentally dipped his fountain pen into a pool of molten tin and pulled out the foundation of the digital world. He had no idea what he had done.  In this episode Jan Czochralski: The Polish chemist whose mistake became the method used to grow nearly every silicon crystal wafer on Earth. The occupation of Poland: The violent suppression of the Polish people by the Nazis and the Soviet Union (and what Jan Czochralski did during that time).Industrial alchemy: The complex, global journey required to turn stones into the microchips inside our devices.Extreme Ultraviolet Light lithography: The staggeringly precise process we use to paint microscopic circuits onto silicon canvases.Episode Music Jay Opie / Nihilore, CC BY 4.0LiberosisSaved by a Simple Little ThingAtomic Fire LightCathedralThis is EnoughArchival Audio Imperial War MuseumsFirst World War Battle Sounds, Sound: IWM (21819)Additional Reading ASML. (2026). EUV lithography systems. https://www.asml.com/en/products/euv-lithography-systems Branch Education. (2025, August 30). The $200M machine that prints microchips: The EUV photolithography system [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2482h_TNwg Copley, M. (2024, September 30). A tiny town just got slammed by Helene. It could massively disrupt the tech industry. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2024/09/30/nx-s1-5133462/hurricane-helene-quartz-microchips-solar-panels-spruce-pine Institute of National Remembrance. (2026). Jan Czochralski. Giants of Science. https://gigancinauki.pl/ge/biographies/8248,Jan-Czochralski.html Kępa, M. (2017, August). Nazi collaborator or resistance fighter? The extraordinary story behind the man at the core of the digital revolution. Culture.pl. https://culture.pl/en/article/nazi-collaborator-or-resistance-fighter-the-extraordinary-story-behind-the-man-at-the-core-of-the PV Education. (2024). Refining silicon. https://www.pveducation.org/pvcdrom/manufacturing-si-cells/refining-silicon Sokolowski, G. (2023, July 17). Polish chemist creates the foundation for the semiconductor industry. PASI EDU. https://pasi-edu.org/polish-chemist-creates-the-foundation-for-the-semiconductor-industry/ -- Support the show 💚 This show is independently produced. You can support the show by joining the show's Patreon. Patreon members get access to "Found in the Margins" bonus episodes and help make the show possible. You can also donate via Buy Me a Coffee. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And don't forget to sign up to receive Notes from the Machine with each episode.

She was a copywriter turned marketer who watched focus groups attempt to use computers. She knew the internet wasn't a product you could sell. You needed to give people a way in. Her name was Jan Brandt, and she decided to mail it to them. In this episode Jan Brandt: The architect of America Online's carpet bombing strategy that put a billion discs in American handsOmaha Steaks, airlines, and grocery stores: how the discs became inescapableA 150-pound throne and a museum case: What happened to the AOL discs that didn't go in the trashThe digital divide: The people who got left behindEpisode Music Jay Opie / Nihilore, CC BY 4.0There's Garbage in the Mariana TrenchMorality CentreHemiteleiaWhere There is No DarknessAdditional Reading McCullough, B. (2014, August). She gave the world a billion AOL CDs: An interview with marketing legend Jan Brandt [Podcast episode]. Internet History Podcast. https://www.internethistorypodcast.com/2014/08/she-gave-the-world-a-billion-aol-cds-an-interview-with-marketing-legend-jan-brandt/ National Telecommunications and Information Administration. (n.d.). Data Central. U.S. Department of Commerce. https://www.ntia.gov/topics/data-central Ramo, J. C. (1997, September 22). How AOL lost the battles but won the war. Time. https://time.com/archive/6731455/how-aol-lost-the-battles-but-won-the-war/ Smithsonian Institution. (n.d.). America Online (AOL) disc [Object record, NMAH catalog no. 2010.3015.05]. National Museum of American History. https://www.si.edu/object/nmah_1395721  -- Support the show 💚 This show is independently produced. You can support the show by joining the show's Patreon. Patreon members get access to "Found in the Margins" bonus episodes and help make the show possible. You can also donate via Buy Me a Coffee. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And don't forget to sign up to receive Notes from the Machine with each episode.

In 1965, engineers were building a computer to fly men to the moon. It had to survive a rocket launch and the vacuum of space. It could not be erased by a power failure, a hard landing, or anything short of physical destruction. They needed to make the code permanent. They needed to weave it. In this episode Hilda Carpenter - MIT technician who assembled the first magnetic-core memory planeThe Raytheon weavers - Textile workers and watchmakers recruited to encode Apollo's computerThe Fairchild Semiconductor plant - Where Navajo women built integrated circuits so men could walk on the moon Episode Music Jay Opie / Nihilore, CC BY 4.0"Those 2 Saints""Evening Drum""No History Should Be Silenced""Behind the Mask" Additional Reading CuriousMarc. (2019). Core memory explained and demonstrated [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/AwsInQLmjXc Nakamura, L. (2014). Indigenous circuits. Computer History Museum. https://computerhistory.org/blog/indigenous-circuits/ Rankin, J. L. (2022, February 18). Core memory weavers and Navajo women made the Apollo missions possible. Science News. https://www.sciencenews.org/article/core-memory-weavers-navajo-apollo-raytheon-computer-nasa Shirriff, K. (2019). Software woven into wire. Ken Shirriff's Blog. https://www.righto.com/2019/07/software-woven-into-wire-core-rope-and.html Stark, L. (2018). Hilda wove all those wires [Zine]. https://www.liza-stark.com/projects/zines/hilda.html Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. (2017). "Hear my voice" artist profile: D.Y. Begay [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9wmz5rf1NU -- Support the show 💚 This show is independently produced. You can support the show by joining the show's Patreon. Patreon members get access to "Found in the Margins" bonus episodes and help make the show possible. You can also donate via Buy Me a Coffee. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And don't forget to sign up to receive Notes from the Machine with each episode.

The show has a new name.  Starting with this episode, Lore in the Machine is now Found in the Machine. Same stories, same voice. The name just finally says what the show actually does.  If you're subscribed, your feed will keep updating automatically. If you want to share the show with someone new, the new home is foundinthemachine.com. -- Support the show 💚 This show is independently produced. You can support the show by joining the show's Patreon. Patreon members get access to "Found in the Margins" bonus episodes and help make the show possible. You can also donate via Buy Me a Coffee. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And don't forget to sign up to receive Notes from the Machine with each episode.

Listeners, please note that this episode was recorded before the show’s name changed to Found in the Machine, so you’ll hear the old name in this episode.   You’ve done this so many times you don’t think about it anymore. A box appears. You squint at some blurry letters, type them out, check the box. It takes about ten seconds. You probably didn’t know that those ten seconds were going somewhere. For years, millions of people solving these security tests were quietly doing something else entirely. They were rescuing forgotten history that computers couldn’t read. In 1950, Alan Turing proposed a test where machines tried to pass as human. Half a century later, a graduate student inverted it. The machine would do the judging. And the humans would get to work. In this episode Turing's imitation game - the thought experiment that set the terms for AILuis von Ahn and Manuel Blum - the Carnegie Mellon graduate student and his professor who built the wall between humans and botsreCAPTCHA - the internet security test that became the largest digitization project in historyreCAPTCHA v3 - the invisible version Episode Music Jay Opie / Nihilore, CC BY 4.0"Whispers Invoke Paranoia""Do Not Look Back""Artifice"Additional Reading Pandey, K. (2022, July 25). History & evolution of CAPTCHA. Masai School. https://www.masaischool.com/blog/history-evolution-of-captcha/ Gugliotta, G. (2011, March 29). Deciphering Old Texts, One Woozy, Curvy Word at a Time. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/29/science/29recaptcha.html Weintraub, S. (2009, September). Google acquires reCAPTCHA in two-for-one deal. Computerworld. https://www.computerworld.com/article/1331965/google-acquires-recaptcha-in-two-for-one-deal.html Schwab, K. (2019, June 27). Google's new reCAPTCHA has a dark side. Fast Company. https://www.fastcompany.com/90369697/googles-new-recaptcha-has-a-dark-side -- Support the show 💚 This show is independently produced. You can support the show by joining the show's Patreon. Patreon members get access to "Found in the Margins" bonus episodes and help make the show possible. You can also donate via Buy Me a Coffee. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And don't forget to sign up to receive Notes from the Machine with each episode.

Listeners, please note that this episode was recorded before the show’s name changed to Found in the Machine, so you’ll hear the old name in this episode.  Two people walk toward each other on a dirt road. One bullet each. In a normal duel, a missed shot makes a sound. But in a silent duel, a miss would be invisible. You wouldn't know if your opponent was holding their fire, or had already taken their one shot. How would you know when to stop walking and take your own? In 2024, NVIDIA named the most powerful piece of AI hardware ever built after the man who spent his career thinking about this exact problem. His name was David Blackwell.  In this episode David Blackwell: brilliant professor and researcher at the RAND Corporation. Seventh African American to earn a PhD in mathematics.Kriegsspiel: the blind chess variant that Blackwell played daily.Blackwell's silent duel: a thought experiment from Cold War-era game theory, and why related math ended up in machine learning textbooks.The economist's question: the most important question in the world at that moment, asked in good faith, and why every mathematician Blackwell knew gave the same useless answer.  Episode Music Jay Opie / Nihilore, CC BY 4.0"Anti-Nostalgia""Who Are You At War With Now?""Alter Ego" Additional Reading AYE Conference. (n.d.). Activity sheet 1: David Blackwell and the theory of duels [PDF]. https://www.ayeconference.com/Articles/gameTheory.pdf Black, R. (2019). David Blackwell and the deadliest duel. Royal Fireworks Press. Blackwell, D. (2003). An oral history with David Blackwell [Oral history transcript; conducted by N. Wilmot, 2002–2003]. Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. https://bpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/sites.tufts.edu/dist/8/3572/files/2015/11/blackwell.pdf NVIDIA. (2024). NVIDIA Blackwell architecture. https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/data-center/technologies/blackwell-architecture/ -- Support the show 💚 This show is independently produced. You can support the show by joining the show's Patreon. Patreon members get access to "Found in the Margins" bonus episodes and help make the show possible. You can also donate via Buy Me a Coffee. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And don't forget to sign up to receive Notes from the Machine with each episode.

Listeners, please note that this episode was recorded before the show’s name changed to Found in the Machine, so you’ll hear the old name in this episode.  Four times a year, a small group of people fly to a secure facility in either Virginia or California. They submit to retina scanners and palm readers. They enter a metal cage in a signal-proof room. They turn keys in unison. These people are volunteers, and they're there to perform a ritual to secure the internet's core directory.  If you build a master key for the internet, who do you trust to hold it? In this episode The Ceremony of the Keys - the 700-year-old nightly ritual at the Tower of London, and what it has to do with cyber securityThe Crypto Officers - who they are, and what they carryThe Ritual - over 100 scripted steps, a self-destructing lockbox, and a laptop with no memoryThe things that went wrong - because they do  Episode Music Jay Opie / Nihilore, CC BY 4.0"Like an Empty Kaleidoscope""Single Lane Tunnel""The Absurd""Iconoclast" Additional Notes This episode is the follow-up to "Poison in the Cache."  If you want to see this ritual for yourself, you can. The root signing relies on radical transparency, so every step is shared. The list of ceremonies is available via the IANA along with the full list of Crypto Officers. Additional Reading Internet Assigned Numbers Authority. (2026, February 10). Root Zone KSK ceremony 60 annotated script [Ceremony script]. https://data.iana.org/ksk-ceremony/60/AT60_Annotated_Script.pdf Internet Hall of Fame. (2014, March 25). Our online safety is protected by one "stubborn lady." https://www.internethalloffame.org/2014/03/25/our-online-safety-protected-one-stubborn-lady/ McCarthy, K. (2020, February 13). Internet's safe-keepers forced to postpone crucial DNSSEC root key signing ceremony. The Register. https://www.theregister.com/2020/02/13/iana_dnssec_ksk_delay/ -- Support the show 💚 This show is independently produced. You can support the show by joining the show's Patreon. Patreon members get access to "Found in the Margins" bonus episodes and help make the show possible. You can also donate via Buy Me a Coffee. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And don't forget to sign up to receive Notes from the Machine with each episode.

Listeners, please note that this episode was recorded before the show’s name changed to Found in the Machine, so you’ll hear the old name in this episode.  Every time you type a web address, you're trusting a directory. A vast, invisible system that translates the names you know into the numbers that actually move data across the internet. You trust it the way a town trusts its well. In 2008, a security researcher named Dan Kaminsky discovered that the well had no lid. In this episode DNS - the Domain Name System and why it mattersDan Kaminsky - security researcher and internet advocate Cache poisoning - the class of attack Dan found hiding in the internet's foundationThe patch - a secret meeting, a deadline, and a synchronized fix Episode Music Jay Opie / Nihilore, CC BY 4.0"Closest Strangers""Single Lane Tunnel" "The Dweller on the Threshold""A Different World by Night" Additional Reading Choi, S. G. (n.d.). Remote DNS attacks and DNS defenses [Lecture notes, IT432 Advanced Computer and Network Security]. U.S. Naval Academy. https://www.usna.edu/Users/cs/choi/it432/lec/l07/lec.html Vixie, P. (2008, July 14). Not a guessing game. CircleID. https://circleid.com/posts/87143_dns_not_a_guessing_game/ Internet Hall of Fame. (2022, March 23). A dedicated approach to Internet security: Daniel Kaminsky. https://www.internethalloffame.org/2022/03/23/dedicated-approach-internet-security-daniel-kaminsky/ Kaminsky, D. (2008). Black Ops 2008: It's the end of the cache as we know it [Conference presentation, DEF CON 16]. Video: https://media.blackhat.com/bh-usa-08/video/bh-us-08-Kaminsky/black-hat-usa-08-kaminsky-blackops08-hires.m4v (Note: this is Kaminsky's DEF CON Black Ops talk, not Black Hat) -- Support the show 💚 This show is independently produced. You can support the show by joining the show's Patreon. Patreon members get access to "Found in the Margins" bonus episodes and help make the show possible. You can also donate via Buy Me a Coffee. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And don't forget to sign up to receive Notes from the Machine with each episode.

Listeners, please note that this episode was recorded before the show’s name changed to Found in the Machine, so you’ll hear the old name in this episode.  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 together. It's on billions of devices worldwide. How that symbol ended up there is two stories separated by half a century. One starts with a Hollywood actress listening at a dinner table full of fascists. The other starts with two engineers bombing a pitch meeting and ending up in a Canadian pub. In this episode Hedy Lamarr - after the cameras and the dinner partiesThe patent - a collaboration and what the Navy said about itTwo engineers in a pub - a failed pitch meeting and a conversation about Vikings and a Danish king Episode Music Jay Opie / Nihilore, CC BY 4.0"Morning Bell" "Noctivagant (Orchestral Version)" "Moonlit Skyline" Additional Reading Sinclair. (2018, May 17). How the pianola played a part in Hedy Lamarr's invention. American Masters, PBS. https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/blog/bombshell-hedy-lamarr-story-pianola-played-part-hedy-lamarrs-invention/ Lamarr, H. (1966). Ecstasy and me: My life as a woman. Bartholomew House. https://archive.org/details/ecstasymemylife00lama Bedi, J. (2015, November 12). A movie star, some player pianos, and torpedoes. Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation, Smithsonian Institution. https://invention.si.edu/invention-stories/movie-star-some-player-pianos-and-torpedoes Kardach, J. (n.d.). Naming Bluetooth. https://www.kardach.com/bluetooth/naming_bluetooth Rhodes, R. (2011). Hedy's Folly: The life and breakthrough inventions of Hedy Lamarr, the most beautiful woman in the world. Doubleday. https://archive.org/details/hedysfollylifea00rhod_0 -- Support the show 💚 This show is independently produced. You can support the show by joining the show's Patreon. Patreon members get access to "Found in the Margins" bonus episodes and help make the show possible. You can also donate via Buy Me a Coffee. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And don't forget to sign up to receive Notes from the Machine with each episode.

Listeners, please note that this episode was recorded before the show’s name changed to Found in the Machine, so you’ll hear the old name in this episode.  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 Lewis Carroll, and a quiet trick built into its name that has been manipulating computers for decades.  In this episode, we follow the README from its earliest appearances through the conventions that made it a standard, and to the programmers who decided it could be much more than documentation. In this episode Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - the literary origin programmers point to as inspirationThe ASCII trick - the quiet reason README is written in all capitalsThe printer in the woods - a README that went somewhere unexpected Episode Music Jay Opie / Nihilore, CC BY 4.0"Dasein" "Scarecrow" by James Opie / Nihilore, CC BY 4.0"Found Poetry" by James Opie / Nihilore, CC BY 4.0Additional Reading Raymond, E. S. (Ed.). (2003). README file. In The Jargon File (Version 4.4.7). http://catb.org/jargon/html/R/README-file.html [ADG]. (ca. 1981). README.TXT [Software documentation, DECUS program 20-0079]. DECUS. https://pdp-10.trailing-edge.com/decus_20tap3_198111/01/decus/20-0079/readme.txt.html Yokota, E. [eed3si9n]. (2012, October 19). README [GitHub Gist]. https://gist.github.com/eed3si9n/3920236 -- Support the show 💚 This show is independently produced. You can support the show by joining the show's Patreon. Patreon members get access to "Found in the Margins" bonus episodes and help make the show possible. You can also donate via Buy Me a Coffee. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And don't forget to sign up to receive Notes from the Machine with each episode.

Listeners, please note that this episode was recorded before the show’s name changed to Found in the Machine, so you’ll hear the old name in this episode.  In 1968, a researcher named Douglas Engelbart took the stage in San Francisco and showed a thousand computer professionals something they had never seen: text editing, clickable links, and video conferencing, all controlled by a small wooden block with a wire trailing out the back. But the mouse didn't begin with Engelbart. In this episode, we follow the tangled history of the world's most common computer peripheral and its origins as a Cold War secret. We'll also find out why your cursor is tilted 45 degrees. In this episode The Mother of All Demos - the 1968 presentation that changed computingDATAR - a classified Cold War radar project, and an unlikely contribution to computing historyThe Rollkugel - a German parallel invention and a patent rejectionXerox PARC and Apple - how the mouse finally reached the world Music Jay Opie / Nihilore, CC BY 4.0"Brocken Spectre""Shape of a Gun" "Hedgehog's Dilemma""Eternal Light"Additional Reading The Mother of All Demos. (n.d.). Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_of_All_Demos Computer History Museum. (n.d.). DATAR trackball (Object ID 500004669). CHM Revolution: Input & Output. https://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/input-output/14/350/1881 Bardini, T. (2000). Bootstrapping: Douglas Engelbart, coevolution, and the origins of personal computing. Stanford University Press. https://archive.org/details/bootstrapping00thie Hill-Khurana, J. (2020, May). A brief history of the mouse cursor, from Engelbart to PARC. https://jameshk.com/mouse-cursor -- Support the show 💚 This show is independently produced. You can support the show by joining the show's Patreon. Patreon members get access to "Found in the Margins" bonus episodes and help make the show possible. You can also donate via Buy Me a Coffee. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And don't forget to sign up to receive Notes from the Machine with each episode.

Listeners, please note that this episode was recorded before the show’s name changed to Found in the Machine, so you’ll hear the old name in this episode. Every programmer knows 'foo' as the "insert name here" of software development. But where did it come from? And what does it have to do with 'bar'? In this episode, we trace the history of foo in programming back through three unlikely chapters: a Depression-era comic strip, a WWII air squadron, and a group of MIT students who built a computer underneath a model train set. The story runs through hacker culture, computing folklore, and a very strange corner of World War II history. In this episode Bill Holman and Smokey Stover - a 1930s comic strip and a catchphrase that accidentally entered the computing lexiconThe Foo Fighters - not the band; the original phenomenon, and the airmen who named itThe Tech Model Railroad Club - MIT's legendary hacker origin story, and why their emergency switch matters more than you'd think Episode music  George L. Cobb,  Public Domain"Procrastination Rag (1927)"Jay Opie / Nihilore, CC BY 4.0"The Illusion of Cold""Man Alone Chimes the Hour"Additional Reading Eastlake, D., Manros, C., & Raymond, E. (2001, April 1). Etymology of "Foo" (RFC 3092). Internet Engineering Task Force. https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3092.txt Smokey Stover LLC. (n.d.). Smokey Stover online. https://www.smokey-stover.com/ What were the mysterious "foo fighters" sighted by WWII night flyers? (2016, July 20). Air & Space Magazine. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/what-were-mysterious-foo-fighters-sighted-ww2-night-flyers-180959847/ Samson, P. R. (2005). The TMRC dictionary (Annotated 1st ed., originally compiled 1959). https://www.gricer.com/tmrc/dictionary1959.html  -- Support the show 💚 This show is independently produced. You can support the show by joining the show's Patreon. Patreon members get access to "Found in the Margins" bonus episodes and help make the show possible. You can also donate via Buy Me a Coffee. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And don't forget to sign up to receive Notes from the Machine with each episode.

Every line of code has a story. Most of us just never hear it.  Found in the Machine is a narrative technology podcast about the forgotten history of computing, software, and the internet. Each episode uncovers the true story behind a piece of computing history or internet lore to surface the forgotten people, decisions, and accidents that quietly shaped the digital world.  If you've ever wondered who actually made something you use every day, and why you've never heard their name before, you'll feel at home here. This show is for the curious, not the credentialed. You don't need a technical background to follow along. You just need to be the kind of person who pulls on threads.  New episodes every other week. -- Support the show 💚 This show is independently produced. You can support the show by joining the show's Patreon. Patreon members get access to "Found in the Margins" bonus episodes and help make the show possible. You can also donate via Buy Me a Coffee. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And don't forget to sign up to receive Notes from the Machine with each episode.