S2023E18 23 mars 2023 6 min

How Witness Protection Manages to Keep a 100% Success Rate

Half as Interesting - Season 2023

Watch

Episodes

Seasons

How Witness Protection Manages to Keep a 100% Success Rate

Episodes

Why Building Ski Lifts Is Incredibly Hard

The Massively Complicated Task of Buying Insurance for a Satellite

Why Canada’s Teachers Run an Investment Firm in Singapore

The Navy’s Obscure, Super-Efficient Swim Stroke

The Weirdly Complex Science of Snow Removal

Why the IRS Taxes Illegal Income

The Corporate Conspiracy Behind California’s Smallest Town

How Amish People Get Around Not Using Electricity

Why Soda Cans are Shaped Differently in Hawaii

Why the US Gov Reshapes the Mississippi River

The Genius $250 Toll Road from Minnesota to Minnesota

How Science Made You Finally Like Brussels Sprouts

Why Every Baseball Stadium Has Different Rules

Why It’s Impossible to Build a Crochet Machine

Why American Lawns All Look The Same

The NY Subway's Weirdly Successful Lost and Found System

North Korea’s Bizarre New Propaganda Program

How Witness Protection Manages to Keep a 100% Success Rate

How Amazon Broke the US Patent Office

The Continent-Sized Algae Blob That’s Coming for Florida

How To Spot a Really Good Art Forgery

The Court That Settles Wikipedia Editor Drama

The Material So Classified We Forgot How to Make It

This Diabetes Drug Causes Weight Loss (and Chaos)

Why You Can Legally Steal From a Sinking Ship

The Giant Propaganda Show That’s In Almost Every City

How the White House Reads Every Letter it Gets

How Much Happiness Can Money Buy?

The Super Obvious Ways to Get Around Campaign Finance Laws

Why We're Reaching the Theoretical Limit of Computer Power

Why It Took 13 Years to Engineer The Taco Bell Crunchwrap

The Website Where You Can Order The Bubonic Plague

Dyson’s Disinformation War with Big Paper Towel

How Planes Forecast Turbulence

Why Tape Storage is Making a Sneaky Comeback

How the Fake Meat Industry Saved Dippin’ Dots

How the World’s 4 Cryogenics Companies Actually Work

The Intense Logistics of Truffles

Why the US and China Are Squabbling Over This One Wire

How Argentina Accidentally Gave Germans 40% Off Everything

We've Made 400 Videos for the Internet. Here are the Worst Ones.

Why The US Navy Really Needs This One Forest in Indiana

Why This Airline Only Has One Commercial Flight Per Month

Trains’ Weirdly Massive Problem with Leaves

How Porsche Owns Volkswagen and Volkswagen Owns Porsche

Why the US Government Has No Idea How Many Buildings It Owns

The Weirdly Lucrative Business of Searching for Old Jeans

Chicago’s $10 Billion Street Parking Mistake

Why Only 24 Pilots Are Allowed to Land at This Airport

The Remote Town Where 13.2% of People are Millionaires

How The Pentagon Became The World’s Most Secure Building

The Surprisingly Complex Logistics of Product Returns

Every Mistake We’ve Ever Made VI: Return of the Jed-lie

The 3100-Mile Longest Official Running Race in the World

Why It Takes 7+ Years to Shut Down a Nuclear Plant

The Only River That Flows Into Both the Atlantic and the Pacific

How to Fail a Kitchen Inspection

How The President’s Official Vacation Home Works

Why Venice’s New €8 Billion Flood Barrier Only Kinda Works

The Design Flaw That Made Hyundais Absurdly Easy to Steal

Australia’s Huge Mistake of Selling All Their Water

How Submarines Survive at 36,201 Feet Below

Why China Built an Antenna Bigger Than NYC

Why Qatar Airways Flies An Almost-Empty Flight to Adelaide

How 70% of Britain’s Cash Went Missing

How This Utah Hotel Legally Became a Town

Why The US is in 42 Different National Emergencies

The 128 Airlines So Dangerous They’re Banned in the EU

Why the US Gov Pays $10 Million a Year for This Yacht

The Arctic Vault That Protects Data from the Apocalypse

NASA’s Year-Long, Totally Fake Mission to Mars

The Vault That Holds 5% of the World’s Gold

The Controversial Machine That’s Ruining Bowling

What Exactly Happens When You Check a Bag

The Super-Secure Delivery Service That Only Diplomats Can Use

Why China Took the US’ Pandas

Seasons