Listening ideas for 4 August 2011 (2)

Leonard Lopate Show
A Portrait of the Hacker as a Young Man
In 2000, Michael Calce, known as Mafiaboy, brought down the websites of Amazon, CNN, Dell, E-TRADE, eBay, and Yahoo!, inciting panic from Silicon Valley to the White House. He served eight months in open custody for the 56 charges on which he was convicted. In Mafiaboy: A Portrait of the Hacker as a Young Man, written with Craig Silverman, he gives a tour of the fast-evolving 21st-century world of hacking—from disruptions caused by teens like Calce, to organized crime and other efforts with potentially catastrophic results—and explains how to protect yourself online.
(review, feed)

Thinking Allowed
The Mummy's Curse
Roger Luckhurst and Marina Warner discuss the myth of the mummy's curse and Audrey Linkman considers the relationship between photography and death
(review, feed)

Witness
The Kon-Tiki expedition
In 1947 a Norwegian explorer sailed a wooden raft across the Pacific Ocean.
(review, feed)

TED Talks
How language transformed humanity - Mark Pagel
Biologist Mark Pagel shares an intriguing theory about why humans evolved our complex system of language. He suggests that language is a piece of "social technology" that allowed early human tribes to access a powerful new tool: cooperation.
(review, feed)