Found in the Machine

Daina Bouquin
  • 5.0(8개의 평가)
  • 과학 기술
  • 격주 업데이트

Every line of code has a story. Most of us just never hear it.  Found in the Machine is a narrative podcast about the forgotten people, decisions, and accidents that quietly shaped  the digital world.  If you've ever wondered who actually made the technology 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 unearth human stories from computing history every other week. 

  1. 1일 전

    Half-Light: Mark Klein and Room 641A

    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 James 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 Found in the Machine is a narrative podcast about the forgotten people, decisions, and accidents that quietly shaped the digital world. New episodes unearth stories from computing history every other week. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. You can also sign up to receive Notes from the Machine with each episode. You can support the show and independent booksellers by purchasing from the show's bookshop at bookshop.org/shop/foundinthemachine.

    17분

  2. 6월 23일

    Silent Agreement: MIDI and What We Hear in the Wires

    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 Johann 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 Synthesizer Additional 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 Found in the Machine is a narrative podcast about the forgotten people, decisions, and accidents that quietly shaped the digital world. New episodes unearth stories from computing history every other week. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. You can also sign up to receive Notes from the Machine with each episode. You can support the show and independent booksellers by purchasing from the show's bookshop at bookshop.org/shop/foundinthemachine.

    16분

  3. 6월 9일

    Working in the Dark: Secrets, Silicon, and Light

    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 James Opie / Nihilore, CC BY 4.0LiberosisSaved by a Simple Little ThingAtomic Fire LightCathedralThis is EnoughArchival Audio Imperial War Museums, Non-Commercial LicenseFirst 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 Found in the Machine is a narrative podcast about the forgotten people, decisions, and accidents that quietly shaped the digital world. New episodes unearth stories from computing history every other week. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. You can also sign up to receive Notes from the Machine with each episode. You can support the show and independent booksellers by purchasing from the show's bookshop at bookshop.org/shop/foundinthemachine.

    16분

  4. 5월 26일

    America on Hold: How the Internet Arrived

    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 James 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 Found in the Machine is a narrative podcast about the forgotten people, decisions, and accidents that quietly shaped the digital world. New episodes unearth stories from computing history every other week. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. You can also sign up to receive Notes from the Machine with each episode. You can support the show and independent booksellers by purchasing from the show's bookshop at bookshop.org/shop/foundinthemachine.

    15분

  5. 5월 12일

    The Weavers: Memory and the Moon

    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 James 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 Found in the Machine is a narrative podcast about the forgotten people, decisions, and accidents that quietly shaped the digital world. New episodes unearth stories from computing history every other week. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. You can also sign up to receive Notes from the Machine with each episode. You can support the show and independent booksellers by purchasing from the show's bookshop at bookshop.org/shop/foundinthemachine.

    14분

  6. 5월 11일 ·  보너스

    Found

    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 Found in the Machine is a narrative podcast about the forgotten people, decisions, and accidents that quietly shaped the digital world. New episodes unearth stories from computing history every other week. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. You can also sign up to receive Notes from the Machine with each episode. You can support the show and independent booksellers by purchasing from the show's bookshop at bookshop.org/shop/foundinthemachine.

    1분

  7. 4월 28일

    I’m Not a Robot: The Internet's Human Test

    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 James 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 Found in the Machine is a narrative podcast about the forgotten people, decisions, and accidents that quietly shaped the digital world. New episodes unearth stories from computing history every other week. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. You can also sign up to receive Notes from the Machine with each episode. You can support the show and independent booksellers by purchasing from the show's bookshop at bookshop.org/shop/foundinthemachine.

    9분

  8. 4월 14일

    The Silent Duel: David Blackwell and the Math Inside AI

    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 James 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 Found in the Machine is a narrative podcast about the forgotten people, decisions, and accidents that quietly shaped the digital world. New episodes unearth stories from computing history every other week. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. You can also sign up to receive Notes from the Machine with each episode. You can support the show and independent booksellers by purchasing from the show's bookshop at bookshop.org/shop/foundinthemachine.

    11분
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예고편

5
최고 5점
8개의 평가

소개

Every line of code has a story. Most of us just never hear it.  Found in the Machine is a narrative podcast about the forgotten people, decisions, and accidents that quietly shaped  the digital world.  If you've ever wondered who actually made the technology 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 unearth human stories from computing history every other week. 

정보

  • 제작진
    Daina Bouquin
  • 방송 연도
    2026년
  • 에피소드
    15
  • 등급
    전체 연령 사용가
  • 저작권
    © 2026 Daina Bouquin
  • 웹사이트 보기
    Found in the Machine

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