Sep 17, 2024

Shop online till you drop

John MacDougall/AFP via Getty Images

How much more could we possibly buy online? Plus, dingbat apartment complexes and growing up indoors.

Segments From this episode

Despite all the recent growth, e-commerce still has room to expand

by Samantha Fields

Sep 17, 2024

About 20% of retail sales are online these days.

Practices like curbside pickup for online orders, which was popularized early in the pandemic, have made it difficult to track just how many sales are made online versus in person.

Robin L Marshall/Getty Images

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Homebuilder confidence up ahead of expected rate cuts

by Elizabeth Trovall

Sep 17, 2024

Easing monetary policy would make construction and mortgage loans cheaper, potentially lifting a depressed housing market.

Lower rates would make homes cheaper to build and bring down mortgage costs a bit.

Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images

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Let's double-click on the jargon execs use in earnings calls

by Stephanie Hughes

Sep 17, 2024

Company leaders repurpose certain familiar words and phrases to create a narrative about how their businesses are doing.

People who use the term “economic moat” to describe a company’s competitive advantage may want to imitate billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who has used the phrase for decades.

Tim Graham/Getty Images

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Adventures in Housing

Los Angeles' "dingbat" apartments are a kitschy piece of the past

by Sean McHenry

Sep 17, 2024

Shaped by the car culture, dingbats are going obsolete due to earthquake risk. But their names and style flourishes bring nostalgic smiles.

Dingbat dwellings were once a staple in LA, but they've required retrofitting in the quake-prone city.

Victor Decolongon/Getty Images

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Our old electrical grid is limiting how much wind and solar power we can use

by Caleigh Wells

Sep 17, 2024

It isn't easy to upgrade a 20th-century system of transmission lines, generating stations and home outlets for 21st-century needs.

Solar and wind power generate direct current, which must be converted to alternating current to "play well" with the existing electrical grid, historian Julie Cohn says.

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

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Streets used to be full of kids playing. Can those spaces be reclaimed?

by Kai Ryssdal and Sarah Leeson

Sep 17, 2024

As neighborhoods experiment with play streets, grownups can reconsider modern parenting, Stephanie Murray wrote in The Atlantic.

Children playing safely on city streets may be a thing of the past.

Douwe Bijlsma/BSR Agency/Getty Images

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Music from the episode

Shake It Loose Astronauts, etc

PLASTIC OFF THE SOFA Beyonce

Drugs It's Butter

I Do It for the Music spring gang

gogobebe MAMAMOO

The team

Nancy Farghalli Executive Producer

Maria Hollenhorst Producer II

Andie Corban Producer I

Sarah Leeson Producer I

Sean McHenry Director & Associate Producer II

Sofia Terenzio Associate Producer I

Jordan Mangi Assistant Digital Producer

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