This week on the Game Deflators Podcast, John dives into some current gen PlayStation 2 accessories and his recent play of Prince of Persia Sands of Time. Meanwhile, Ryan’s deep into Silk Song, and he’s got thoughts—lots of them. The duo also tackles Nintendo’s latest round of controversial patents, raising eyebrows across the gaming community. Fro…

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with Julien Mailland, Associate Professor of Media Management, Law, and Policy at The Media School of Indiana University Bloomington, about his book, The Game That Never Ends: How Lawyers Shape the Videogame Industry. The book examines key moments, beginning in the 1970s, in which legal decisions influenced …

Constructing Student Mobility: How Universities Recruit Students and Shape Pathways between Berkeley and Seoul (MIT Press, 2023) challenges the popular image of the international student in the American imagination, an image of affluence, access, and privilege. In this provocative book, higher education scholar Stephanie Kim argues that universitie…

This week, John and Ryan kick things off with some fresh gaming pickups. John dives into his full playthrough of Neva, sharing thoughts on its emotional beats and visual storytelling, and gives a first-timer’s take on Beyblade Episode 1—no nostalgia goggles, just curiosity about the hype. Ryan’s been hands-on with Hollow Knight: Silksong, and while…

Eyes by Hand: Prosthetics of Art and Healing (MIT Press, 2025) is a book about artificial eyes—about the artisans and artists who make them, and about the life-changing and sometimes life-saving experience of wearing them, as author Dan Roche has done for 15 years. Eye making is done by hand, for one person at a time, by a very small number of ocul…

This week on the Game Deflators Podcast, John and Ryan dive into a whirlwind of gaming goodness. Ryan returns from PAX West 2025 with fresh impressions, indie highlights, and a few surprises from the show floor. Meanwhile, John wraps up his journey through Final Fantasy VI with final thoughts on its legacy and storytelling, then jumps into the lush…

In this week’s episode of The Game Deflators, John and Ryan dive into their latest pickups—from video games to spicy new Magic: The Gathering cards—and share updates on what’s been dominating their playtime lately. But the real chaos begins with the ripple effect of Hollow Knight: Silksong’s release date announcement, as developers scramble to dodg…

This week on The Game Deflators Podcast – John and Ryan dive into the cardboard chaos of Magic: The Gathering, unpacking their latest pickups and sounding off on the absurdity of collector booster prices. Is Wizards of the Coast pricing out its own fanbase? Meanwhile, John shares his progress on Final Fantasy VI and The Witcher, revealing whether p…

In the entire first hour of the show, Ramie Makhlouf takes your Cubs calls as the team dropped it's 3rd straight series against the Blue Jays this time, and the team falls to 8 games behind the Brewers in the NL Central division.

In the second hour, Ramie Makhlouf talks with WGN's Kaitlin Sharkey on what she's seen overall in Bears training camp, he listens back to some of Ryan Poles with Mully & Ruthie Polinsky earlier this morning, and says that he likes the Cubs calling up their top prospect Owen Caissie, but they should've done it earlier in the season.…

In the third and final hour, Ramie Makhlouf goes over some of Mike Sando's QB tier list and debates if we'll find out this season if Caleb Williams is the Bears franchise QB or not, he then talks with Marquee's Alex Cohen about the recent call up of Owen Caissie and if the main bats on the Cubs roster can figure it out, and lays out a scenario that…

As climate change accelerates and urbanization intensifies, our need for more sustainable and livable cities has never been more urgent. Yet, the imaginary of a flourishing urban ecofuture is often driven by a specific version of sustainability that is tied to both high-tech futurism and persistent economic growth. What kinds of sustainable futures…

'Art, Science, and the Politics of Knowledge (MIT Press, 2022)' by Hannah Star Rogers When I sat down with Hannah Star Rogers to discuss her new book Art, Science, and the Politics of Knowledge, I found myself nodding along to a refreshingly obvious yet somehow radical proposition: why do we insist on keeping art and science in separate corners? Ro…

In this week’s episode of The Game Deflators, John and Ryan dive into a treasure trove of gaming updates, pickups, and hot takes: Magic: The Gathering fans won’t want to miss the duo’s latest haul from Edge of Eternities, plus an update on the closure of Strixhaven Year Three in their long-running Dungeons & Dragons campaign. The Game Deflators als…

The human mind has the curious, even mysterious, ability to generate thoughts about things with which we are not in causal contact, such as when we think about yesterday’s tennis final, or Aristotle, or unicorns. Naturalizing mental content has usually meant explaining how this is possible in terms that eliminate the mystery while retaining commitm…

Octopuses can open jars to get food, and chimpanzees can plan for the future. An IBM computer named Watson won on Jeopardy! and Alexa knows our favorite songs. But do animals and smart machines really have intelligence comparable to that of humans? In Bots and Beasts: What Makes Machines, Animals, and People Smart? (MIT Press, 2021), Paul Thagard l…

On this week’s Game Deflators episode, John and Ryan unbox their latest gaming hauls and share what’s hitting their shelves. The duo then dives into Wizards of the Coast's latest attempt to heal wounds in the D&D community by offering virtual tabletop map access across DnD Beyond. Is it a gesture of goodwill, or just clever cartography? Next, the g…

In this week's episode of The Game Deflators, John and Ryan tackle a dynamic mix of gaming news, nostalgic throwbacks, and anime hype. They kick things off with a breakdown of the latest One Piece anime episode and dive into their current progress reading the manga. Ryan then shares his newest Magic The Gathering pickups as John contemplates his ne…

Ramie Makhlouf opened his show by discussing how the Brewers have overtaken the Cubs for first place in the NL Central. Later, he shared his goals for the Bears in this upcoming season.

In the second hour, Ramie Makhlouf welcomed on Marquee Sports Network reporter Scott Bair to discuss the latest Bears storylines after their first practice Wednesday. Later, Makhlouf asked listeners what they believe the Cubs' biggest need is as the trade deadline looms.

In the final hour, Ramie Makhlouf was joined by Sahadev Sharma of The Athletic to discuss the Cubs' needs as the trade deadline looms. Later, Makhlouf listened and reacted to Bears head coach Ben Johnson's press conference from Tuesday.

John and Ryan are back at it with a jam-packed episode of gaming goodness and industry buzz. Things kick off with their latest gaming-related pickups and what’s currently stealing time from their backlogs. Then it’s onto the mystical halls of Strixhaven, as John leads a recap of their ongoing D&D campaign discussing enchanted puzzles, morally murky…

For centuries, monuments have telegraphed the values and origin myths of dominant culture in public space and on massive scale. They have signaled both who is part of a culture and who is not, often overlooking histories that complicate the stories they tell. Yet in the last 50 years in the United States, the role of monuments has changed significa…

Most of us know something about the grand theories of physics that transformed our views of the universe at the start of the twentieth century: quantum mechanics and general relativity. But we are much less familiar with the brilliant theories that make up the backbone of the digital revolution. In Beautiful Math: The Surprisingly Simple Ideas behi…

This week on the Game Deflators Podcast, John and Ryan share what they've been playing lately, swapping thoughts on new digital adventures and long-time favorites. John recaps his Crit Hit experience packed with tabletop energy and provides an update from the duos ongoing Strathaven Dungeons and Dragons campaign—expect magical mayhem and unexpected…

In this episode, John and Ryan bring a fastball of nostalgia and digital reckoning to your speakers. The duo dives into EA’s announcement to shut down Anthem's servers in January 2026, dissecting the legacy of a game that promised big but struggled to soar. Then it's a deep-tech discussion as they unravel the silent killer behind your favorite hand…

On August 27, 1783, a large crowd gathered in Paris to watch the first ascent of a hydrogen balloon. Despite the initial feverish enthusiasm, by the mid-nineteenth century the balloon remained relatively unchanged and was no longer seen as the harbinger of a new era. Yet that all changed in the last third of the century, when following the traumati…

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with Matt Wisnioski, Professor of Science, Technology, and Society at Virginia Tech, about his new book, Every American an Innovator: How Innovation Became a Way of Life. The pair talk about how the new book connects to Matt’s earlier book, Engineers for Change; how what Matt calls “innovation expertise” fir…

In this episode of the Game Deflators Podcast, John and Ryan unpack an action-packed week in gaming with a lineup that spans kart racing chaos, collectible card surprises, corporate culture wins, and a splash of retro nostalgia. They kick things off with the wild new Sonic Racing CrossWorlds where iconic franchises like Minecraft, TMNT, and Avatar:…

Chuck Swirsky welcomed on Score teammate Cody Westerlund and then Sun-Times writer Joe Cowley to discuss the Bulls' selection of French forward Noa Essengue at No. 12 overall in the NBA Draft.

Chuck Swirsky reacted to the Bulls' selection of French forward Noa Essengue at No. 12 overall in the NBA Draft and welcomed on Audacy NBA insider Nick Friedell to discuss the activity across the league.

An Abundance of Caution: American Schools, the Virus, and a Story of Bad Decisions (MIT Press, 2025) is a devastating account of the decision-making process behind one of the worst American policy failures in a century—the extended closures of public schools during the pandemic. In fascinating and meticulously reported detail, David Zweig shows how…