Note to Self (WNYC Studios)

Stories of life online, told live.

We teamed up with Generation Women, a monthly event where women from their 20s to their 80s share stories on a theme. For this episode, the theme is My Digital Revolution. Tales from the wellness editor at Teen Vogue, Kathy Tu from the Nancy podcast, Chirlane McCray, the first lady of New York. And Carol Prisant, the most baller septuagenarian you’ve ever heard. For real. Plus, Generation Women founder Georgia Clark.

-------

Our newest series is No Filter: Women Owning It Online. Since #metoo, we're all rethinking what it means to be a woman in the world. But what does it mean to be a woman on the web? To find out, we've partnered with New York Magazine's The Cut. Hear our launch episode now.

Follow us on Twitter @manoushz and @notetoself, or on Facebook. Email us any time at notetoself@wnyc.org - we love hearing from you. Responses from real humans, not bots, promise.

The woman behind some of your favorite gifs takes us to the future. See what being a woman on the web may look like.

We couldn’t close out No Filter, our series on women owning it online, without profiling Jasmyn Lawson, former culture editor at Giphy. That's the search engine that houses all those looped videos we use to express emotion - and ourselves - online. But when Jasmyn started working there, she couldn’t find many gifs that looked like her. "Just having Beyonce and Rihanna and Nicki Minaj is not enough to say you're representing black women." So she made her own.

-------

Some podcast news: For the next several weeks you'll hear the “Best of” Note to Self in your podcast feed. Our favorite episodes. Manoush will be working on some other projects, but she’ll be back before you know it with some changes and surprises. Keep in touch with her on Twitter, Instagram, and on her website.

This week we’re discussing government censorship in China, #metoo and cryptocurrency.

Endless Thread is hosted by Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson, and is made by WBUR.

We asked you guys to send us photos. Then we gave them to Andreas Weigend, veteran of Xerox Parc, former chief scientist at Amazon, to see what he could deduce. A lot, it turns out.

A little Google image search, a little metadata, and we can find where you are. Maybe who you are. What color phone you’re using to take the shot, and how many SIM cards you have.

Reading photos is more than a digital parlor trick. It’s the future of commerce, marketing, policing, lending, and basically everything else.

-------

For the next several weeks you'll hear the “Best of” Note to Self in your podcast feed. Our favorite episodes. Manoush will be working on some other projects, but Note to Self will be back before you know it with some changes and surprises. Keep in touch with her on Twitter, Instagram, and on her website.

The tech show about being human returns with an all new season. Host Manoush Zomorodi kicks things off with the latest on the battle between kids and parents over their screens: do we know how kids are impacted by tech? Does it make them less empathetic? Are they being constantly bullied online? Even if we can help kids figure out their digital habits, are we adults totally screwed? Researcher Elizabeth Englander joins Manoush to share new findings and give the most pragmatic advice about how kids and adults can build better relationships with their tech and each other.

Right from wrong. We teach our kids what this means in the classroom and at home. But whatabout online? The next generation of tech users could be a part of much more civilized digitaluniverse, but only if they learn how now. Manoush talks to Richard Culatta (CEO of theInternational Society for Technology in Education) about the five steps to creating good digitalcitizens, and how to turn the current online “culture shift” into something positive, respectful, andmore accessible to all.

Sign up for Manoush’s newsletter StableG.com/newsletter and find her other podcasts atZigZagPod.com and IRLPodcast.com

Her portrait of Michelle Obama went viral. Painter Amy Sherald dismisses the haters. “Some people want their poetry to rhyme.”

Plus, Allison P. Davis, Senior Culture Writer at The Cut, on how picking Amy was like Michelle Obama choosing her own Instagram filter.

This is day three of our weeklong series, No Filter: Women Owning It Online, with New York Magazine’s The Cut. Five conversations with badass women. Some old, some young. ALL have bent the internet to their will. And trust us, you don’t have to be a woman for this series to be a must-listen.

Monday we talked to Instagram megastar Lele Pons. Yesterday, Transparent star Trace Lysette. Coming up, CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour, and iconic artist Barbara Kruger, who blew all of our minds.

-------

We want to hear from YOU. How do you portray yourself online? Let us know in a quick message. We have a new way to talk to us, right in your browser. Give it a try.

Follow us on Twitter @manoushz and @notetoself. Email us any time at notetoself@wnyc.org - we love hearing from you. Responses from real humans, not bots, promise.

This week, the Supreme Court cases that defined privacy for the digital age. Because the founding fathers didn’t write the Bill of Rights with the internet in mind.

-------

For the next several weeks you'll hear the “Best of” Note to Self in your podcast feed. Our favorite episodes. Manoush will be working on some other projects, but she’ll be back before you know it with some changes and surprises. Keep in touch with her on Twitter, Instagram, and on her website.

We visit the Dark Web, where you can get heroin, fentanyl and oxycontin shipped right to your door. This week, the link between online drug markets and America’s opioid crisis.

-------

For the next several weeks you'll hear the “Best of” Note to Self in your podcast feed. Our favorite episodes. Manoush will be working on some other projects, but she’ll be back before you know it with some changes and surprises. Keep in touch with her on Twitter, Instagram, and on her website.

Every day this week, a new episode of our series, No Filter: Women Owning It Online, with New York Magazine’s The Cut. Five conversations with badass women. Some old, some young. ALL have bent the internet to their will. And trust us, you don’t have to be a woman for this series to be a must-listen.

Today, Lele Pons. And if you’re thinking “Lele who?”, you’re not a teen girl. The Instagram megastar talks to Manoush about crafting her image, controlling her edits, and why she gives her cell number to fans.  

Tomorrow, Transparent actor Trace Lysette. Wednesday, painter Amy Sherald, who created that stunning portrait of Michelle Obama. Then CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour, and iconic artist Barbara Kruger, who blew all of our minds. Plus, writers from The Cut.

-------

And we want to hear from you. Send us a quick message - How do YOU portray yourself online? How does the internet mess with your head? How do you mess back? We have a new way to talk to us, right in your browser. Give it a try.

Follow us on Twitter @manoushz and @notetoself, or on Facebook. Email us any time at notetoself@wnyc.org - we love hearing from you. Responses from real humans, not bots, promise.

With former Google designer Tristan Harris, who explains how far Silicon Valley will go to capture and control your eyeballs. And Snapchat artist CyreneQ, who makes her living drawing on her phone all day. For real.

-------

For the next several weeks you'll hear the “Best of” Note to Self in your podcast feed. Our favorite episodes. Manoush will be working on some other projects, but Note to Self will be back before you know it with some changes and surprises. 

The Transparent star talks to Manoush about the political nude selfie, her #metoo moment, and constructing her self online and IRL. Plus, how her life as a young trans woman prepared her to confront Jeffrey Tambor and live her truth. With Noreen Malone, features editor at The Cut.

Every day this week, a new episode of our series, No Filter: Women Owning It Online, with New York Magazine’s The Cut. Five conversations with badass women. Some old, some young. ALL have bent the internet to their will. And trust us, you don’t have to be a woman for this series to be a must-listen.

Yesterday, Instagram megastar Lele Pons. Coming up, painter Amy Sherald, who created that stunning portrait of Michelle Obama. CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour. Iconic artist Barbara Kruger, who blew all of our minds. 

-------

How do YOU portray yourself online? Send us a quick message - we have a new way to talk to us, right in your browser. Give it a try.

Follow us on Twitter @manoushz and @notetoself. Email us any time at notetoself@wnyc.org - we love hearing from you. Responses from real humans, not bots, promise.

We kick off our new series, No Filter: Women Owning It Online, with New York Magazine’s The Cut. Because since the #metoo movement, we’re all rethinking what it means to be a woman in the world. But what about what it means to be a woman on the web?

Today, our launch episode. Every day next week, a new conversation with a badass woman about the highs and lows of living online. And how they've bent the internet to their will. Trust us, you don’t have to be a woman for this series to be a must-listen.

-------

We want to hear from you. How do YOU portray yourself online? How does the internet mess with your head? How do you mess back? We have a new way to send us a message, right in your browser. Give it a try.

Follow us on Twitter @manoushz and @notetoself, or on Facebook. Email us any time at notetoself@wnyc.org - we love hearing from you. Responses from real humans, not bots, promise.

Generic usernames, no photos, no tweets. This week, we investigate the dozens of mysterious accounts following Manoush on Twitter. Plus, what makes a good bot – and a bad one.

-------

For the next several weeks you'll hear the “Best of” Note to Self in your podcast feed. Our favorite episodes. Manoush will be working on some other projects, but Note to Self will be back before you know it with some changes and surprises. Keep in touch with her on Twitter, Instagram, and on her website.

We all need someone to tell (or text) our stories to. Even if they’re paid to text back.

This week, Manoush meets an Invisible Girlfriend, earning pennies a message to create fake love. And an utterly wonderful man using the service for an entirely valid reason. We’re revisiting this 2015 episode to warm your heart pre-Valentine's Day.

-------

Subscribe to our Wednesday morning newsletter for info on new episodes, our must-reads, and the news you need to get just a little geeky.

Follow us on Twitter @manoushz and @notetoself, or on Facebook. Email us any time at notetoself@wnyc.org - we love to hear from you. Responses from real humans, not bots, promise.

Today, listener stories and tips: we wrap up our No Filter series of conversations about how women live online.

From YouTube megastar Lele Pons to iconic artist Barbara Kruger, we heard a joyous mix of vulnerable confessions, utter defiance, and (for once) a mostly positive vision of what being a woman on the web can look like. To wrap it up, stories from you. About how you’re reconciling the IRL you with the online you. Plus, The Cut’s editor-in-chief Stella Bugbee is back with her greatest hope for the next generation of women in the workplace.

-------

Some podcast news: For the next several weeks you'll hear the “Best of” Note to Self in your podcast feed. Our favorite episodes. Manoush will be working on some other projects, but she’ll be back before you know it with some changes and surprises. Keep in touch with her on Twitter, Instagram, and on her website.

Long-distance friends Giorgia Lupi and Stefanie Posavec spent a year tracking the little things in life. Thanks yous, coffees, complaints, street sounds. And each week, they turned their small-scale data collections into whimsical hand-drawn postcards.

On a minute level, they may not say much. But look at them together and they tell an intimate story. This week, Giorgia and Stefanie talk us through three weeks of data, and all the big lessons in our most mundane moments.

-------

For the next several weeks you'll hear the “Best of” Note to Self in your podcast feed. Our favorite episodes. Manoush will be working on some other projects, but Note to Self will be back before you know it with some changes and surprises. 

Look at more postcards by Giorgia and Stefanie here. 

The iconic artist talks to Manoush about our curated selfies, owning a font, and why we all need likes. Plus, The Cut’s editor in chief Stella Bugbee.

If you missed the other episodes of No Filter earlier this week, go back! Instagram megastar Lele Pons, Transparent actor Trace Lysette, painter Amy Sherald, who made Michelle Obama’s official portrait, and anchor Christiane Amanpour.

-------

We want to hear from YOU. How do you portray yourself online? Let us know in a quick message. We have a new way to talk to us, right in your browser. Give it a try.

Follow us on Twitter @manoushz and @notetoself. Email us any time at notetoself@wnyc.org - we love hearing from you. Responses from real humans, not bots, promise.

The CNN anchor talks to Manoush about sex, wearing a “uniform,” and staying profesh on air and online.

Plus, Call Your Girlfriend co-host and Cut contributor Ann Friedman, who almost fell out of her ergonomic chair when she found out she’d be in the same episode as Christiane.

Every day this week, a new episode of our series, No Filter: Women Owning It Online, with New York Magazine’s The Cut. Five conversations with badass women. And trust us, you don’t have to be a woman for this series to be a must-listen.

We’ve heard from Instagram megastar Lele Pons, Transparent actor Trace Lysette, and painter Amy Sherald, who made Michelle Obama’s official portrait. Tomorrow, we close the week with iconic artist Barbara Kruger.

-------

We want to hear from YOU. How do you portray yourself online? Let us know in a quick message. We have a new way to talk to us, right in your browser. Give it a try.

Follow us on Twitter @manoushz and @notetoself. Email us any time at notetoself@wnyc.org - we love hearing from you. Responses from real humans, not bots, promise.

Christiane’s new show is Sex & Love Around the World. And Ann’s podcast is, of course, Call Your Girlfriend, with Aminatou Sou.

Screen time is a daily battle. Between kids and parents, between ourselves and our better judgment. But maybe it doesn’t have to be. There is a better way.

Manoush gets the answers from Anya Kamenetz, NPR education correspondent and author of the new book, The Art of Screen Time: How Your Family Can Balance Digital Media and Real Life. Practical strategies, solid research, and some reassurance that mostly we’re all gonna be fine.

And we sneak a peek at Dina Temple-Raston’s new podcast, What Were You Thinking: Inside the Adolescent Brain.   

-------

Subscribe to our Wednesday morning newsletter for info on new episodes, our must-reads, and the news you need to get just a little geeky.

Follow us on Twitter @manoushz and @notetoself, or on Facebook. Email us any time at notetoself@wnyc.org - we love to hear from you. Responses from real humans, not bots, promise.

Let’s build a database of political Facebook ads. Just in case someone needs to check on them later. Like, say, if the Russians bought thousands of ads to sway an election. Manoush’s privacy girlfriend, ProPublica’s Julia Angwin, is back with a challenge (and a browser plugin) for Note to Self listeners.

-------

Subscribe to our Wednesday morning newsletter for info on new episodes, our must-reads, and the news you need to get just a little geeky.

Follow us on Twitter @manoushz and @notetoself, or on Facebook. Email us any time at notetoself@wnyc.org - we love to hear from you. Responses from real humans, not bots, promise.

We asked how you share personal photos. Here’s what we learned from your 1,200 (!) answers.

Psychologist Guy Winch joins Manoush to untangle our mixed posting emotions. Because our grams are complex. A trans listener is thankful his parents didn’t post during his teen years. A mom doesn’t understand her daughter’s online brand. A son wishes his dad included him in family snapshots. Nothing is just a pretty picture.

Plus, the wonderful Charlotte Philby, former editor of Motherland magazine. Her family posts were part of her "brand" - until she stopped gramming cold turkey.

-------

Guy Winch’s new book is How to Fix a Broken Heart.

Charlotte Philby’s website is here, and the article she wrote about her famous spy granddad is incredible.

We gathered some of your comments in a Medium post, because you all are amazing.

Subscribe to our Wednesday morning newsletter for info on new episodes, our must-reads, and the news you need to get just a little geeky.

Follow us on Twitter @manoushz and @notetoself, or on Facebook. Email us any time at notetoself@wnyc.org - we love to hear from you. Responses from real humans, not bots, promise.

Computer scientist and cult-blogger, Cal Newport, wants you to take 30 dates off from all your personal tech. A month off, he claims, is the only way to truly adopt Digital Minimalism, his method for finding tech-life balance and the name of his latest book. Manoush loves a digital detox as much as the next overloaded person, but she explains to Cal why she has issues with his particular prescriptions. 

Manoush writes a newsletter that comes out every other Thursday. Sign up at StableG.com/newsletter and find her other podcasts at ZigZagPod.com and IRLPodcast.com

Note to Self helps you navigate the digital age by making sense of its most undervalued component: humans! With all new episodes coming every Tuesday, host Manoush Zomorodi investigates the very personal role technology plays in our lives and how we can live better with it. Because you are so much more than an algorithm.

Real OKCupid message: “Hi, good evening, nice photos. You are not fat.” It’s rough on dating apps. Can romance survive?

Eric Klinenberg wrote Modern Romance with Aziz Ansari. This week, he joins Manoush to make the case that dating apps have killed romance. Featuring a mystery dater, reporting from the frontier of 21st century love. 

-------

Subscribe to our Wednesday morning newsletter for info on new episodes, our must-reads, and the news you need to get just a little geeky.

Follow us on Twitter @manoushz and @notetoself, or on Facebook. Email us any time at notetoself@wnyc.org - we love to hear from you. Responses from real humans, not bots, promise.

Mona Chalabi, data editor at the Guardian, takes the numb out of numbers. She joins Manoush to talk about stats versus stories, how data defines normal, and average testicle size. That one’s an interactive iPhone chart. For real. 

Her hand-drawn illustrations are in her Instagram feed, if you want to check them out as you listen. Specifically, Manoush and Mona talk about the “iceberg of pervs,” women in Congress, the hairiness series, and male vocal change.

*all credit for the numb/numbers wordplay goes to Mona, via her Twitter bio.

-------

Listen to Mona's new podcast, Strange Bird.

Subscribe to our Wednesday morning newsletter for info on new episodes, our must-reads, and the news you need to get just a little geeky.

Follow us on Twitter @manoushz and @notetoself, or on Facebook. Email us any time at notetoself@wnyc.org - we love to hear from you. Responses from real humans, not bots, promise.

Is there a secret solution to information overload? Can random accounts ever truly be erased? How do I stay connected if I break up with social media? It’s Manoush’s brain, distilled into actionable pearls of wisdom. Plus, meet the woman behind the Note to Self inbox.

Read the full list of tips and services we discuss in the episode. Including Manoush's favorite newsletters, and a killer oatmeal cookie recipe.

-------

Subscribe to our Wednesday morning newsletter for info on new episodes, our must-reads, and the news you need to get just a little geeky.

Follow us on Twitter @manoushz and @notetoself, or on Facebook. Email us any time at notetoself@wnyc.org - we love to hear from you. Responses from real humans, not bots, promise.

In 2018, Andria Zafirakou was named Global Teacher of the Year and given $1m in prize money. Why?

Biographers have relied on handwritten letters for centuries, but more and more, they're using emails, texts and online chats to tell the story of a person's life.

Experiments in the life sciences, taxi technology and bike sharing are helping regular people do DIY scientific research and transform the way they get around. 

Simple experiences, like borrowing a ladder from a neighbor or just taking a long solitary hike, are being altered by tech.

When it comes to finding just the right sized office space, New York City's tech companies are turning to subleases because they are not ready to sign five to 10 year leases favored by the city's landlords.

New York City is a leading center for neuroscience research, so you'd think it would stand to benefit from President Obama's new $100 million initiative to map the human brain. Well, not so fast. 

Some e-retailers are shifting their strategies and deciding to open brick-and-mortar stores, hoping to lure customers who might not be comfortable purchasing a pair of shorts or eyeglasses without first trying them on. 

In the smart home of the future, your milk jug will tell you when your milk has gone sour, your plants will text you when they need watering and with solar panels on your roof, you may not even need to be connected to the power grid. 

Scientists in New York City are at the center of President Obama's brain research initiative, a $100 million effort to better understand the inner workings of the human noggin. 

This week New Tech City takes you into the bodegas, laundromats and back alleys of New York's black market for stolen cell phones.

"Hello, this is Grace from Westchester. I am 16-year-old girl. I have an iPhone 4 and I am going to record my activities for the next few days."

Caitlin Dewey, one of our favorite technology and culture critics/newsletter curators, picked five stories of the year for your listening (and actually relaxing into the idea that we don't REALLY have to care about EVERYTHING) pleasure.

With the latest iOS update, you can start using ad blockers on your phone. But should you? Meet the ethical quandary at the heart of the Internet as we know it.

Giant whale turds. A permanent shade over the sun. One is flashier, but that's the danger of it. This is poopier oceans vs. the climate quick fix.

The last episode in our five-part series, with TED science curator David Biello.

That pile of papers on your desk? That lunch meeting you can't seem to nail down? The hundreds of emails that raise your blood pressure? We're here to help.

Can algorithms help us eat and love better? We went on a mission to find out.

This week, Manoush visits a micro-school in her Brooklyn neighborhood where the cushions are cozy and every child is optimized. Think Montessori 2.0... and the future of education if one former Google executive gets it right.

Support Note to Self by becoming a member today at NotetoSelfRadio.org/donate.    

The tradeoffs we don’t see when we shop on Amazon. Why the answer isn’t to cancel your Prime. And yes, I bring Alexa’s new camera into my bedroom.

-------

Subscribe to our Wednesday morning newsletter for info on new episodes, our must-reads, and the news you need to get just a little geeky.

Follow us on Twitter @manoushz and @notetoself, or on Facebook. Email us any time at notetoself@wnyc.org - we love to hear from you. Responses from real humans, not bots, promise.

We've seen the good, bad and ugly of tech this election cycle. And we all have big feelings about it. So Manoush hosted a good old-fashioned call-in, for listeners to share their thoughts and fears about our digital lives under a Trump administration. With Farhad Manjoo of The New York Times, and Marc Rotenberg of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. 

Support Note to Self by becoming a member today at NotetoSelfRadio.org/donate.    

Could smartwatches make us less addicted to our phones? Listen to this techies's argument for using more tech to beat back a tech obsession. 

If your phone was stolen, you'd most likely be concerned that the thief would now have access to your bank account...and your vacation photos. But what if the thief was the government?

The man behind the Bulletproof empire explains why sometimes in order to get results, you have to go to extremes.

"Book of Numbers" author Joshua Cohen answers the question: If we know people are only going to skim, how does that change the way we write?

A back-to-school reprise of one of our favorite episodes: How at least one 16-year-old uses the device giving adults so much angst.

Is your favorite band really playing live when you go see them? Not so much. This isn't about Milli Vanilli. It's about something artists love called backing tracks. 

From Jay-Z to Justin Timberlake to the indie band at the local bar, performers are playing along to pre-recorded music to make themselves sound bigger, badder, fuller.

In this episode, we ask: 'is it right to feel wronged as a fan of live music'? Alex Kapelman did. He's a musician and co-host of the documentary music podcast Pitch, where a version of this story first appeared. Click the audio player above to hear Alex and Manoush go on a journey of discovery to find out why backing tracks enraged him so much when he found out his favorite band was less live than he thought.

Along the way we hear from musicians who make backing tracks, we listen to some huge non-backed tracks to show it can be done pure, and we meet Columbia University professor Jennifer Lena, who studies the sociology of music. She gives Alex a hefty smack down about music snobbery in the second half of the show. 

Naturally, we couldn’t end this episode without taking our own stab at backing tracks. Call it Manoush’s debut single: Podcasting Glory, which premieres at the end of this episode. Hilarity ensues. 

On how pervasive backing tracks have become: “I think it's totally an industry standard at this point," Ian Pei, drummer of Avan Lava who also makes backing tracks for bands.  On the risks of backing tracks: "We we’re playing in front of 50,000 people, my computer’s plugged in not only to the sound system but also to the video screen. And... this giant beep goes off, and then my photo library is playing on a video screen in front of 50,000 people,” Ian Pei of Avan Lava. On why she uses backing tracks live: “Until it can be afforded to have like 20 musicians up there... until all those sounds can be replaced, then yes, I do feel it necessary," Brittany Campbell musician.  On why not to judge too rashly: “I don’t want us to have an artistic culture where the majority of the conversations we have about the stuff that’s really at stake for us is judging whether we’re right or somebody else is right,” Columbia Professor Jennifer Lena.

 If you like this episode why not share it with two friends who love music, or who go to live shows.

To get future audio downloads of our program direct to your phone or computer, subscribe to the New Tech City podcast on iTunes, Stitcher or via RSS. It just takes a second. Thanks.

There is a perfect tone of voice according to Dan Emodi. And he believes his technology can pinpoint it for you. 

This is the second of two episodes about technology that dissects our voices, pulls them apart, and analyzes them digitally to understand our emotions.

Hear how Emodi's company, called Beyond Verbal, is applying 20 years of "emotion analytics" to help us understand ourselves better. These products claim to be able to determine true emotions just from listening to you speak for 20 seconds. It could also determine if a salesperson is using the "perfect sales intonation" or if a given customer calling up is 'exasperated and furious' or 'exasperated and ready to listen'.

Market research and call centers may be the early testing ground of emotion detection software, but the applications could end up working as a wellness tool or even a dating aide (humorously demonstrated in this video). 

Listen to part 1 on tech and the human voice: mental health and medical research. 

If you like these stories, please subscribe to New Tech City on iTunes or RSS. 

There’s so much potential. With big data, researchers can smooth social interactions and create better cities. Maybe cure cancer, and slow climate change. But the data has to come from somewhere. And that somewhere is us.

Support Note to Self by becoming a member today at NotetoSelfRadio.org/donate.    

This is the raw interview used in our episode "The Other Ed Snowdens" with William Binney and Ladar Levison. In that podcast episode we said the conversation got wonky and in the weeds so we cut out some of the most detailed debate about NSA surveillance and crystallographic options. Well, here is that part of the conversation. 

If you missed that episode, give it a listen. Bill Binney worked for more than 30 years at the NSA and designed the architecture for programs the NSA later used to spy on American citizens. When he found out, he quit the agency and went public about it. Call him the pre-Snowden NSA whistleblower. 

Ladar Levison ran the secure email program Ed Snowden used to communicate with Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras. When the FBI came to him asking for the keys to the encryption he decided to shut down his company rather than comply. That dramatic story is told in our episode "When the FBI Knocks."

After you listen to this bonus segment of New Tech City, let us know how you want us to keep the conversation going. Post a comment, we'll get the message. Or get in touch on Twitter @newtechcity or at newtechcity at WNYC.org

If you like this episode, why not post a link to this on a friend's Facebook feed who cares about privacy. And if you haven't already done it, go ahead and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes, or on Stitcher, TuneIn, I Heart Radio, or anywhere else using our RSS feed.

Amber Smith's voice is a symptom of illness and an alarm for looming danger, even if she doesn't always hear it herself.

Amber has bipolar disorder and her mood swings are a risk: high highs can lead to massive spending sprees and low lows have dipped into suicidal territory. She's managing it now with medication. She's also testing out a new technology to try to catch a mood swing before it starts by using her cell phone to analyze the acoustics of her voice. Tiny variations in how she speaks, or you speak, can be clues to shifting mental states. 

"Speech is incredibly rich it encodes so much of our behavior, it encodes information about gender, about our age, about our identity, and in this case about mood," explains computer engineering professor Emily Mower Provost of the University of Michigan. She and her colleague psychiatrist Melvin McInnis are testing out how to plumb the hidden signals and codes of a human voice to enable early action and better care for people with mental health issues. 

It gets touching, it gets ambitious, and it's all pretty hopeful. Have a listen. 

This is Part 1 of a two part series on voices and how computers and new technology can hear hidden meaning in how we speak. Next week: how this is being used to make products and profits. Subscribe to New Tech City here to make sure you don't miss it. 

The creators of the Netflix hit Black Mirror on predicting the future, Twitter as a massive role-playing game, and nostalgia for meh. As season four of the Emmy-award-winning show approaches, we revisit Manoush’s conversation with show creators Charlie Brooker and Annabel Jones. Chipper optimism and wit from two delightfully dark geniuses.

-------

Subscribe to our Wednesday morning newsletter for info on new episodes, our must-reads, and the news you need to get just a little geeky.

Follow us on Twitter @manoushz and @notetoself, or on Facebook. Email us any time at notetoself@wnyc.org - we love to hear from you. Responses from real humans, not bots, promise.

Netflix’s Black Mirror is a tweaked reflection of technology’s worst consequences - what show creator Charlie Brooker calls a “sarcastic version of the present.’ This week, Brooker and executive producer Annabel Jones join us for a cheerfully dystopian chat about where their ideas come from, why they haven’t quit TV to launch a startup, and Twitter as the world’s top video game.

Support Note to Self by becoming a member today at NotetoSelfRadio.org/donate.    

Touchscreen phones work so well for blind people that Braille may become obsolete. But advocates worry this could render the next generation "functionally illiterate."

Support Note to Self by becoming a member today at NotetoSelfRadio.org/donate.    

Technologist Anil Dash on mistakes he’s made, and the new ethics of tech. Journalist Julia Angwin on why we’re all losing, and her strategies as a privacy prepper. Much laughter ensues. Note to Self nerds out, live from WNYC’s Greene Space.

Support Note to Self by becoming a member today at NotetoSelfRadio.org/donate.    

Fluffly and indulgent as they might be the tiny dispatches and status updates of social media are a narrative gold mine for writers. Nonfiction writing will never be the same again. 

This came up, oddly enough, when we had Nick Bilton of the New York Times on our show to talk about how Silicon Valley tech executives raise their kids -- many of them are low tech parents as it turns out. While he was in the studio, he dropped a few fascinating tidbits about how he reported his book, Hatching Twitter, which was just released in paperback. We were so intrigued, we decided to share the previously-untold backstory to how Bilton used Twitter to report on the founders of Twitter. And before you say, "well, duh." It goes way beyond what you'd expect.   

Bilton scraped data from thousands of emails, Twitter handles, Flickr and Instagram photos to cross reference background information, fact check his off-the-record sources, and to find the crucial little telling details that make the book read an intimate insider account. For example, he would use a tweet to learn when someone’s meeting happened and their Instagram photo to see the coffee shop where it took place. 

While Bilton is one of the first to employ this type of big (social) data investigation for the use of nonfiction storytelling, he will most certainly not be the last. 

Subscribe to New Tech City's podcast to get all our future episodes automatically downloaded onto your device via iTunes here, or on Stitcher,TuneIn, I Heart Radio, or our RSS feed if you are into that kind of thing.

Putting down your phone and letting yourself get bored can jumpstart your creativity. Tens of thousands of you helped us prove this in 2015 with our week-long project: Bored and Brilliant. Now, just in time for summer, try out the bootcamp version with three easy behavior changes. They're fun AND proven to get you rethinking your brain, all those notifications, and how we spend our time. 

A summer version of our Bored and Brilliant project, designed to get you rethinking your relationship with your smartphone. Works equally well on vacation, or when you just WISH you were on vacation.

It's time to get really bored and make something creative. You might just learn something about yourself with this challenge designed by artist Nina Katchadourian.

Prepare for our week of Bored and Brilliant challenges with a peek at the data we're gathering on how much you use your phone and what you want to change. Plus, a psychologist and neuroscientist put it all in context with tips for behavior change. 

Manoush made some phone calls to Bored and Brilliant participants around the world. This week, New Tech City eavesdrops.

We changed our phone habits, opened our minds to day-dreaming, and it felt good. Here's what the experts had to say about our data.

We deleted, we unplugged, we took walks. We made choices. We made time. Two years later, we catch up with some of the original Bored and Brilliant participants - some of the 20,000 people who joined our 2015 experiment. Today, that experiment is a book, designed to help us separate from our devices just a bit, and turn them from taskmaster to tool. To make space for boredom, and let the brilliance in.

Plus a new conversation with tech-star and NTS friend Tristan Harris, a designer once tasked with sucking your eyeballs to the screen. Now, he’s fighting the good fight to reclaim your brain.

Yeah, it’s been a while for us too. So let’s reset. It’s the Bored and Brilliant bootcamp: three quick challenges to make space for brilliance in our accelerating world.

Maybe you’ve heard this episode before, but even if you have, a boredom refresher can’t hurt. Take some time to daydream, and see what ideas bubble up as your mind wanders.

Support Note to Self by becoming a member today at NotetoSelfRadio.org/donate.

Minds need to wander to reach full potential, and all that time on your phone might be getting in the way. We're here to help with a big project called Bored and Brilliant: The Lost Art of Spacing Out.

Your instructions: As you move from place to place, keep your phone in your pocket, out of your direct line of sight. Better yet, keep it in your bag.

Bot armies are taking aim at our democracies, spreading garbage on Twitter from last November to Brexit to this weekend’s French election. But what do they want with Manoush?

Support Note to Self by becoming a member today at NotetoSelfRadio.org/donate.    

Touchscreen phones work so well for blind people that Braille may become obsolete. But advocates worry this could render the next generation "functionally illiterate."

This week on New Tech City, we're crossing the digital divide. 

Who among us hasn’t wondered, maybe in a stoned haze, if the colors you see aren’t even the same colors that I see? How do we know we’re even in the same reality, man?  That’s what the world has been feeling like, except not so chill. This week, we dissect reality itself, with our friend Brooke Gladstone, host of WNYC’s On the Media.

Support Note to Self by becoming a member today at NotetoSelfRadio.org/donate.    

We tend to click on things we agree with already. And social media networks like it that way. Bumming out your customers is a bad business model. This week, we talk with Tracy Clayton and Katie Notopoulos from BuzzFeed about why that's a problem, and get their tips on widening our everyday nets. With minimal ick factor. 

Support Note to Self by becoming a member today at NotetoSelfRadio.org/donate.    

We tend to click on things we agree with already. Social media networks like to feed us the things we'll click on. This week, we talk with two professional Internet readers from BuzzFeed about why that could be a problem, and get their tips on widening our every day nets.

Andrew Rasiej, chairman of NY Tech Meetup, argues that tech talent can do more for kids and New York's tech sector, if talented programmers get more involved in the classroom.

How a single American’s quest for his own digital marketing profile may show us all how our data travels the world. And may even end up in the hands of foreign governments.

-------

Subscribe to our Wednesday morning newsletter for info on new episodes, our must-reads, and the news you need to get just a little geeky.

Follow us on Twitter @manoushz and @notetoself, or on Facebook. Email us any time at notetoself@wnyc.org - we love to hear from you. Responses from real humans, not bots, promise.

The story goes: the Trump campaign hired consultants called Cambridge Analytica. Cambridge uses data to target voters' personalities and emotions. Trump wins. But it's not so simple. 

Did the Trump campaign have a secret sauce? Or just more ketchup? This week, some answers. With Matt Oczkowski of Cambridge Analytica, psychometrics pioneer Michal Kosinski, and Nicholas Confessore of the New York Times.

Support Note to Self by becoming a member today at NotetoSelfRadio.org/donate.    

The millenial generation has a reputation for selfies, oversharing and cat memes, but many faith leaders are flocking to platforms like Facebook and Twitter to attract more of these young people to the church.

In this week's episode, reporter (and lapsed Catholic) Marielle Segarra visits several tech-savvy churches in and around New York City to see if worship via smartphone apps and social media can bring her back into the fold.

Click on the audio to hear Segarra's personal journey and how one Long Island pastor tracks down parishioners away at college to make sure they are going to Mass.  

Do you have any personal stories about technology and faith? 

Leave a comment below or tweet us at @NewTechCity.

All of the information you need about information overload. Sign up for Note to Self's Infomagical project at wnyc.org/infomagical!

Let’s create some calm as this year ends. It all starts with one deep breath, led by Google employee 107. This week, we revisit Manoush’s lovely interview with Chade-Meng Tan, who retired at 44 to meditate and search for world peace. Because these days, we sure need it.

-------

Subscribe to our Wednesday morning newsletter for info on new episodes, our must-reads, and the news you need to get just a little geeky.

Follow us on Twitter @manoushz and @notetoself, or on Facebook. Email us any time at notetoself@wnyc.org - we love to hear from you. Responses from real humans, not bots, promise.

We take 10 billion (yes, that's a "b") photos per year, mostly on our phones. Today, we want you to start seeing the world through your eyes, not your screen.

Your instructions for today: Delete that app. And listen in as our favorite casual cell phone video gamer confronts the designer of her worst addiction. 

Your third challenge: Avoid a trending topic, or “must read” today. Consume only what's valuable to you. Issued by Cates Holderness, who launched The Dress meme, and Ann Blair, historian of information overload. More instructions here: http://wny.cc/XOEXS

Your instructions: Craft an away-message like “I’m out, taking an intensive sushi making class! Wasabi fingers so no phone for me today!" Put it up for an hour, an afternoon, or the whole day. It's good for your productivity. 

None

For today's challenge, we want you to take note of one person, object, or interesting, uninventable detail you would have missed if your nose were glued to your phone.

After building the social network’s ad system, Antonio García Martínez tried to set his career on fire with a tell-all. An inside view on Face-versaries, terrifying emails from Zuck, and the cult of changing the world. Turns out, it takes a lot to get shunned in the Valley. Especially when you write a bestseller. The author of Chaos Monkeys, on the fallout from his attempt to commit career suicide.

Support Note to Self by becoming a member today at NotetoSelfRadio.org/donate.    

IBM's Watson won Jeopardy. Now, it wants to win your trust in the kitchen — and beyond. This week, we test out the premise of cognitive computing. And cook an avocado.

In this bonus mini-episode, Chelsea Clinton tells Manoush why she's frustrated by the gender gap in tech. Plus, the art of juggling a new baby and a hectic campaign schedule.

Support Note to Self by becoming a member today at NotetoSelfRadio.org/donate.    

Forget Facebook or Twitter. With the inadvertent help of Chinese government censorship, an app called WeChat has taken over the lives of Chinese-Americans. It's part family lifeline, part public square, part dating site and it could be a model for the evolution of social networks. 

This week on New Tech City, hear what's so special about WeChat as we journey through the hilarious story of a vexed husband trying to understand what makes this app so addictive and pervasive in Chinese-American circles. There's annoying patriotic sausages, smokey hot ladies, and a global tech ethnographer all mixed together. Good times. 

Teachers are using apps in class, raising privacy issues for kids and parents. Classroom management app ClassDojo has been thrust to the front of an conversation about student data and privacy stretching far beyond little monster avatars. On this week's episode, we talk with Sam Chaudhary, co-founder of ClassDojo, Jim Steyer, CEO of Common Sense Media, and a community of parents and teachers about the obligations — legal and otherwise — techies have to today's kids. 

This week, five episodes for five ways we can do better by the planet. First: warm up, strip down. Rethink the air conditioner.

With David Biello, science curator for TED. 

First, stick a giant vacuum cleaner onto a smokestack. Inhale the exhaust. Then what?

The last episode in our five-part series, with TED science curator David Biello.

Your digital photos are stressing you out. We're here to help: Welcome to the Note to Self Photo Decluttering System That Will Make You Feel Better About Your Mortality and More.

The 'get girls interested in coding' push is growing from techie pet project to mainstream movement. Now it has a celebrity spokesperson. A very girly spokeswoman to be precise. 

"For someone like me who does identify as traditionally girly, it’s a good way to trick girls into thinking its fun and colorful and then they stay because they can do other stuff with it."

Actress and TV producer Mindy Kaling of The Office and the Mindy Project is a spokesperson for Google's new Made With Code initiative. And she says, meeting girls where they are is definitely the way to go. 

And if you look at the Initiatives and after school projects popping up left and right with names like Girls Who Code, Girl Develop It, Girls Teaching Girls to Code, Black Girls Who Code... well, there's a lot of pink mixed in with the computer science. 

We want to know why? And if it is really necessary to embrace gender norms on the path to bridging the gender divide in tech. 

(Listen to our episode 'The Way We Teach Computer Science Hurts Women' for a sense of why this is so urgent).

In this episode: 

 Mindy Kaling, actress, TV producer, first Indian-American to create and star in her own sitcom Jocelyn Leavitt, creator of Hopscotch (and best friend of Mindy Kaling) Reshma Saujani, founder of Girls Who Code Carol Colatrella, author of Toys and Tools in Pink And some 14 year old girls explaining code to host Manoush Zomorodi. 

No heavy subject matter this week. Instead, we're diving into two subcultures that have been transformed by tech: Coffee and cigarettes. If you've never heard of a burr grinder or cartomizer, this podcast is for you. 

On this week’s episode, Manoush goes to North Carolina to find out why a high school star quarterback and his girlfriend were charged with felonies for sending each other racy (or romantic, depending on your point of view) photos. Turns out the U.S. is at a crazy cultural crossroads when it comes to teenagers, sexting, and the law. 

Support Note to Self by becoming a member today at NotetoSelfRadio.org/donate.