Back in 2005, Bob explained his Chaos Scenario about the future of media--including TV.  Now, he reflects back on predictions he made and the status of television viewing today.

Baba O'Riley - The Who

On January 1, 2016 one of the most infamous books of the 20^th century, Mein Kampf, will go into the public domain and will be published in Germany for the first time in 70 years. German media professor Nikolaus Peifer explains to Bob how Germans are trying to manage and contextualize the book’s release in order to minimalize its impact.

With the first Libyan elections in 40 years just a month away, the shadow of the Gaddafi regime looms large. The National Transitional Council (which holds power in Libya until those elections) recently passed a law that criminalizes glorifying Gaddafi as well as offending the revolution. Bob speaks with Libya Herald editor Sami Zaptia about the implications of the law for speech in Libya.

In 1951, Grove Press was a tiny, almost-defunct publisher with just three titles in its catalog. But then Barney Rosset took over and, with a few choice books, helped push America past its Puritanical roots and into the sexual revolution. His memorial was held this week – he died a few months ago at the age of 89. In an interview from 2008, Brooke talks to Rosset about fighting charges of obscenity over books like Naked Lunch and Tropic of Cancer.

Miles Davis - Chez le Photographe Du Motel 

There's a surplus of statistics about how tough the economy is on kids currently graduating from college. But one statistic says that 85% of graduates - "the Boomerang Generation" - return to live at home with their parents. That figure is wrong, says Louis Jacobson, who tracked down its source for Politifact.com. He talks to Bob about where it came from, and why it circulated for two years. 

Beastie Boys - Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament 

This week Tom Curley, the president and CEO of the Associated Press, apologized on behalf of the AP for the way the organization handled the firing of a reporter named Edward Kennedy. In 1945, Kennedy broke a US government embargo and filed a story about the German surrender in Europe. Bob speaks with Curley about why he decided to apologize now, 67 years after Kennedy was dismissed.

Early this week, the Associated Press broke the story that the US government had stymied an attempt by a Yemini Al-Qaeda group to blow-up a US bound plane. It was a huge scoop, but at the government’s request the AP sat on the story for several days. Bob speaks with AP reporter Matt Apuzzo about the decision to hold the story, and the decision to publish it.

An avid political junkie and a thoroughly scarred presidential campaign watcher, Jason Pargin set out to save his fellow man.  He wrote ‘5 Ways to Spot a B.S. Political Story in Under 10 Seconds’ and he explains to Bob how he came by his expertise the hard way. 

Errors - Tusk

The big political story this week was an argument between the Obama and Romney campaigns about whether or not Romney would have killed Osama Bin Laden, were he president. As the New Yorker's John Cassidy observed, the argument was actually beside the point -- it was a piece of calculated political distraction by the White House. He explains to Bob how it worked, and what news we missed as a result.

Nick Merrill is building an internet service provider called Calyx. Calyx will be designed to encrypt user's data in such a way that it'll be inaccessible to anyone but that user. Which means that if the government asks for your browser history or emails, Calyx will be technologically unable to hand them over. Bob talks to Merrill about his plan.

Much of the hardware and software used by oppressive regimes to monitor foreign dissidents is manufactured in the west. Margaret Coker, Middle East Correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, talks to Bob about President Obama's recent Executive Order banning the sale of this technology to Iran and Syria.

In the cat and mouse game between the prying eyes of oppressive states and anti surveillance technology designers, there’s a new paradigm.  But it’s not the technology itself, it’s the way it’s being designed - everything from the funding to the code is available for everyone to see.  Sascha Meinrath, founder of Commotion Wireless, explains to Bob the paradox that the more information they reveal about their privacy software, the more secret it is. 

JD Samson and MEN - Life's Half Price

Statistician Gareth Sundem has devised an equation that predicts, with pretty fair accuracy, the shelf life of a celebrity marriage. He explains to Bob how it works.

Government writing is so obtuse, so bloated with legalese that the government decided to police itself with the Plain Writing Act of 2010. That act says that the Executive Branch should, you know, write more clearly. Bob speaks with former government employee Dr. Annetta Cheek who began advocating for clearer government writing after seeing a single, beautifully clear regulation.

Quantic - Una Tarde en Mariquita

A year ago veteran war photographers Chris Hondros and Tim Hetherington died of injuries sustained while covering the Libyan uprising.  When friend, colleague and fellow war reporter Sebastian Junger learned that Hetherington died of injuries that didn’t need to be fatal he founded Reporters Instructed in Saving Colleagues or RISC.  Junger tells Brooke why freelance journalists need the tools to save themselves and their fellow reporters on the battlefield.

Breton - The Commission

The United States Senate has taken a page from Invisible Children's playbook and produced a video about bringing Joseph Kony to justice that they hope will go viral. Bob speaks with Senator Chris Coons, the chairman of the Senate subcommittee on African Affairs and one of the senators behind the video. 

A group of Ugandan journalists has released their own online response to Kony 2012. Their aim is to recapture the narrative established by Invisible Children. Bob speaks to contributor Rosebell Kagumire who says the group is focusing more on Ugandans recovering from the war then on the search for Joseph Kony. 

Ballake Sissoko and Vincent Segal - Oscarine

In Britain’s inquiry into the Murdochs this week the big revelation was a trove of 163 emails highlighting a cozy relationship between the office of the UK culture minister and one of James Murdoch’s closest aides. Daily Beast reporter Peter Jukes talks to Bob about the latest travails of the ...

Copyright protections for books have had the effect of driving the vast majority of them from public view.  Meanwhile books in the public domain are surprisingly visible in places like Amazon.com.  So says law professor Paul Heald, who’s been testing this idea. He explains to Bob the negative effects of copyright extension and the not-so-threatening reality of the public domain.

Buying a cheap knock-off is not just a problem with watches and hand bags—if you go onto Amazon's website to buy the latest bestseller, you might accidentally end up with an imitation book. Bob speaks to Fortune senior editor Stephen Gandel, who looked into the knock offs on Amazon, and found a number of books that he says were clearly meant to confuse people by trading off of more popular titles.