エピソード

  • Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling, "The Ghost Lab: How Bigfoot Hunters, Mediums, and Alien Enthusiasts Are Wrecking Science" (PublicAffairs, 2025)
    2025/07/08
    In this episode, New Books Network host Nina Bo Wagner talks to Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling about his recently published book The Ghost Lab: How Bigfoot Hunters, Mediums, and Alien Enthusiasts Are Wrecking Science (PublicAffairs, 2025). They talk about the process of writing the book, including delving deep into the local paranomal community in New Hampshire. The book contrasts profound institutional distrust effecting higher education policy and scientific literacy, with a desperate grapple for community through paranormal beliefs. It portrays the Kitt Research Initiative, established in 2010, with the mission to use scientific method to document the existence of spirits. Founder Andy Kitt was unafraid — perhaps eager — to offend other paranormal investigators by exposing the fraudulence of their less advanced techniques. Kitt’s efforts attracted flocks of psychics, alien abductees, witches, mediums, ghost hunters, UFOlogists, cryptozoologists and warlocks from all over New England, and the world. Hongoltz-Hetling brings our attention to the exponential growth of new age beliefs in the United States, with the potential to be the largest religion in the nation by 2050 at current rates. He argues that it is time for institutions in both science and policy to sit up, take notice, and engage with paranormal beliefs instead of marginalizing, or worse, ostracizing them. Wagner and Hongoltz-Hetling touch on mental health, domestic violence, satanic panic and capturing paranormal orbs. The conversation is sure to provide fascinating insight into unconventional and riveting science journalism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/technology
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    1 時間 8 分
  • Matthew Wisnioski on the History of the Idea and Culture of “Innovation” in the United States
    2025/06/30
    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” first emerged; how government played a key role in promoting the idea of innovation; how the idea of innovation was democratized from focusing on elite white men to focusing on women, people of color, children, and, well, everyone; and much more. Vinsel and Wisnioski also talk about Matt’s current book project with Michael Meindl, Associate Professor of Communication at Radford University - a history of the television show and multimedia product, The Magic School Bus. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/technology
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    1 時間 39 分
  • Elliot Lichtman, "The Computer Always Wins: A Playful Introduction to Algorithms through Puzzles and Strategy Games" (MIT Press, 2025)
    2025/06/22
    In The Computer Always Wins: A Playful Introduction to Algorithms through Puzzles and Strategy Games (MIT Press, 2025), Elliot Lichtman will teach you some of computer science’s most powerful concepts in a refreshingly accessible way: exploring them through word games, board games, and strategy games you already know. Learn recursion by playing tic-tac-toe, efficient search through puzzle games like sudoku and Wordle, and machine learning by way of the playground classic rock-paper-scissors. Finish the book, and you’ll come away with not only a deeper understanding of these foundational programming techniques but also a new appreciation for the amazing feats that can be accomplished using simple, readable code. Elliot Lichtman started teaching online classes in computer science when he was a freshman in high school. Small classes quickly grew into a series of larger and longer offerings, and from those, this book was born. Elliot is currently a junior at Yale University. Caleb Zakarin is editor of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/technology
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    49 分
  • Carly A. Kocurek and Matthew Payne, "Ultima and Worldbuilding in the Computer Role-Playing Game" (Amherst College Press, 2024)
    2025/06/20
    Ultima and World-Building in the Computer Role-Playing Game (Amherst College Press, 2024) is the first scholarly book to focus exclusively on the long-running Ultima series of computer role-playing games (RPG) and to assess its lasting impact on the RPG genre and video game industry. Through archival and popular media sources, examinations of fan communities, and the game itself, this book historicizes the games and their authors. By attending to the salient moments and sites of game creation throughout the series’ storied past, authors Carly A. Kocurek and Matthew Thomas Payne detail the creative choices and structural forces that brought Ultima’s celebrated brand of role-playing to fruition. This book first considers the contributions of series founder and lead designer, Richard Garriott, examining how his fame and notoriety as a pioneering computer game auteur shaped Ultima’s reception and paved the way for the evolution of the series. Next, the authors retrace the steps that Garriott took in fusing analog, tabletop role-playing with his self-taught lessons in computer programming. Close textual analyses of Ultima I outline how its gameplay elements offered a foundational framework for subsequent innovations in design and storytelling. Moving beyond the game itself, the authors assess how marketing materials and physical collectibles amplified its immersive hold and how the series’ legions of fans have preserved the series. Game designers, long-time gamers, and fans will enjoy digging into the games’ production history and mechanics while media studies and game scholars will find Ultima and World-Building in the Computer Role-Playing Game a useful extension of inquiry into authorship, media history, and the role of fantasy in computer game design. Carly A. Kocurek is professor of digital humanities and media studies at the Illinois Institute of Technology. She is the author of Coin-Operated Americans: Rebooting Boyhood at the Video Game Arcade (Minnesota, 2015) and Brenda Laurel: Pioneering Games for Girls (Bloomsbury, 2017).Matthew Thomas Payne is associate professor of ?lm, television, and theatre at the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of Playing War: Military Video Games after 9/11 (NYU Press, 2016), and is a co-editor of How to Play Video Games (NYU Press, 2019) and Joystick Soldiers: The Politics of Play in Military Video Games (Routledge, 2009). Rudolf Thomas Inderst (*1978) enjoys video games since 1985. He received a master’s degree in political science, American cultural studies as well as contemporary and recent history from Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich and holds two PhDs in game studies (LMU & University of Passau). Currently, he's teaching as a professor for game design and game studies at the University of Applied Sciences Neu-Ulm, has submitted his third dissertation at the University of Vechta, holds the position as lead editor at the online journal Titel kulturmagazin for the game section, hosts the German local radio show Replay Value and is editor of the weekly game research newsletter DiGRA D-A-CH Game Studies Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/technology
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    30 分
  • Trans Technologies
    2025/06/19
    How can technology creates new possibilities for transgender people? How do trans experiences, in turn, create new possibilities for technology? Trans Technologies, (MIT Press, 2025) by Dr. Oliver L. Haimson, explores how and why mainstream technologies often exclude or marginalize transgender users. Trans Technologies describes what happens when trans people take technology design into their own hands. Dr. Haimson, whose research into gender transition and technology has defined this area of study, draws on transgender studies and his own in-depth interviews with more than 100 creators of technology—including apps, games, health resources, extended reality systems, and supplies designed to address challenges trans people face—to explain what trans technology is and to explore its present possibilities and limitations, as well as its future prospects.Dr. Haimson surveys the landscape of trans technologies to reveal the design processes that brought these technologies to life, and to show how trans people often must rely on community, technology, and the combination of the two to meet their basic needs and challenges. His work not only identifies the role of trans technology in caring for individuals within the trans community but also shows how trans technology creation empowers some trans people to create their own tools for navigating the world. Articulating which trans needs and challenges are currently being addressed by technology and which still need to be addressed; describing how trans technology creators are accomplishing this work; examining how privilege, race, and access to resources impact which trans technologies are built and who may be left out; and highlighting new areas of innovation to be explored, Trans Technologies opens the way to meaningful social change. Our guest is: Dr. Oliver Haimson, who is an Assistant Professor at University of Michigan School of Information (UMSI) where he directs the Community Research on Identity and Technology (CRIT) Lab, and is affiliate faculty with the Digital Studies Institute (DSI) and a Senior Fellow at the Center for Applied Transgender Studies (CATS). He is a recipient of a National Science Foundation CAREER award, and a Henry Russel Award. Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is the producer of the Academic Life podcast. Playlist for listeners: More Than A Glitch Artificial Unintelligence: How Computers Misunderstand the World He/She/They: How We Talk About Gender and Why It Matters Raising Them Public Scholarship and Feminist Communications Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You can support the show by downloading and sharing episodes. Join us again to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 250+ Academic Life episodes? Find them here. And thank you for listening! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/technology
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    1 時間 7 分
  • Ben Snyder on Spy Plane: Inside Baltimore’s Surveillance Experiment
    2025/06/16
    In this 100th episode (!!!) of Peoples & Things, host, Lee Vinsel, talks with Benjamin H. Snyder, Associate Professor of Sociology at Williams College, about his recent book, Spy Plane: Inside Baltimore’s Surveillance Experiment (University of California Press, 2024). Spy Plane examines how the city of Baltimore, Maryland, came to adopt a corporate-run surveillance program using aerial surveillance planes that could supposedly photograph and track every person in public. Snyder bases his account on incredible access and direct observations inside the for-profit tech startup that ran the program. He also examines the complex reactions of community members in the neighborhoods that were surveilled and how the program eventually fell to pieces. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/technology
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    1 時間 2 分
  • Jean J. Ryoo and Jane Margolis, "Power On!" (MIT Press, 2022)
    2025/06/09
    An interview with Jean Ryoo and Jane Margolis about Power On! A diverse group of teenage friends learn how computing can be personally and politically empowering and why all students need access to computer science education. This lively graphic novel follows a diverse group of teenage friends as they discover that computing can be fun, creative, and empowering. Taylor, Christine, Antonio, and Jon seem like typical young teens—they communicate via endless texting, they share jokes, they worry about starting high school, and they have each other's backs. But when a racially-biased artificial intelligence system causes harm in their neighborhood, they suddenly realize that tech isn't as neutral as they thought it was. But can an algorithm be racist? And what is an algorithm, anyway?In school, they decide to explore computing classes, with mixed results. One class is only about typing. The class that Christine wants to join is full, and the school counselor suggests that she take a class in “Tourism and Hospitality” instead. (Really??) But Antonio's class seems legit, Christine finds an after-school program, and they decide to teach the others what they learn. By summer vacation, all four have discovered that computing is both personally and politically empowering.Interspersed through the narrative are text boxes with computer science explainers and inspirational profiles of people of color and women in the field (including Katherine Johnson of Hidden Figures fame). Power On! is an essential read for young adults, general readers, educators, and anyone interested in the power of computing, how computing can do good or cause harm, and why addressing underrepresentation in computing needs to be a top priority. Listen to the interview on the New Books Network Spanish here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/technology
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    1 時間
  • John Horn, "Inside the Competitor's Mindset: How to Predict Their Next Move and Position Yourself for Success" (MIT Press, 2023)
    2025/05/31
    Inside the Competitor's Mindset: How to Predict Their Next Move and Position Yourself for Success (MIT Press, 2023) offers a roadmap to help leaders predict, understand, and react to their competitors’ moves. It is a valuable tool to help companies stay ahead of their competitors when the competition is intensifying. To make the right choice when a competitor is working hard to prevent it is difficult. This book demystifies the process. For organizations developing systematic tools to effectively predict competitor behavior, this book provides a powerful, fact-based approach to building insight into A must-read for anyone seeking to better understand their competitors. This book shares proven methods for thinking like the competition and understand why they act the way they do. The keys are cognitive empathy and an approach that focuses on why competitors behave as they do. The book presents a systematic approach to competitive intelligence that starts with frameworks that get inside a competitor’s mindset, predict their reactions and assess their actions. The book stresses the importance of collecting forward-looking, predictive data; explains how to use war games, Black Hat exercises, mock negotiations, and premortems to build competitive insight; and makes the case for creating a dedicated competitive insight function within the organization. Reading this book will enable you to anticipate how competitors will react to moves you make. It ingeniously applies lessons from archaeologists, paleontologists, NICU nurses, and homicide detectives to better gather and analyze information when it is not possible to ask direct questions; Alfred Marcus, Edson Spencer Professor of Strategy and Technology University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/technology
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    1 時間 45 分