Podcast appearances and mentions of Ian Bogost

What if the good life isn't hiding in some grand achievement, perfect mood, or future version of yourself—but in the ordinary moments you're already rushing past? Today, we're pairing Ian Bogost's The Small Stuff: How to Lead a More Gratifying Life with Cuong Lu's Happiness Is Overrated: Simple Lessons on Finding Meaning in Each Moment, two books that gently challenge our obsession with happiness. Bogost invites us back into the sensory pleasures of the physical world; Lu, drawing on years as a Buddhist monk under Thich Nhat Hanh, points toward meaning, suffering, and connection. Together, they ask: what if this moment is already enough?

Sean talks with writer and philosopher Ian Bogost about his new book The Small Stuff. They discuss what modern life has lost in its pursuit of convenience, efficiency, and optimization. From stick shifts to coffee cups, lawnmowers, and smartphones, Bogost argues that many of the small sensory experiences that once connected us to the physical world have quietly disappeared. Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling) Guest: Ian Bogost We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. New episodes drop every Monday and Friday. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

While we focus on success or fulfillment as the path to happiness, author Ian Bogost thinks we are overlooking a whole category of life experiences — delightful, small moments of sensory gratification — that can make our lives better. In his new book, The Small Stuff, Bogost says modern life, including our work life, has disconnected us from the physical world, but we'd all feel better if we found a way to rediscover that connection.

We're taught to look for happiness in big moments and major life achievements. But according to cultural critic, game designer and Atlantic writer Dr Ian Bogost, we may be looking in the wrong place. He argues that some of life's richest pleasures are hiding in experiences we barely notice like the feel of a key turning in a lock, the physical satisfaction of operating a machine, or simply paying attention to the world around us. As technology removes more and more of those tactile experiences, we are also losing something about how we experience being alive. Bogost's new book is an argument for slowing down and rediscovering the value of the small, ordinary things we usually overlook. It's called The Small Stuff: How to Lead a More Gratifying Life.

A few years ago, Ian Bogost wrote what he thought was a throwaway Atlantic piece about how electric vehicles would finally kill the manual transmission. It went off like a bomb — and the reaction told him people weren't mourning a car part. They were mourning the feeling of dropping a gear into place, a small moment of sensory connection quietly disappearing without anyone choosing to give it up. Find the full episode and bonus content on our Substack: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/ian-bogost That feeling is the subject of his new book, The Small Stuff. Ian calls it gratification — distinct from happiness or satisfaction, it's the immediate sensory delight of communing with ordinary things: the ridged coffee cup, the click of an elevator button, the tink of ice in a water bottle. And he diagnoses what he calls dematerialization: the slow way efficiency, automation, and software have severed us from the physical texture of daily life. A game designer, longtime Atlantic contributor, and philosopher of the everyday at Washington University in St. Louis, Ian has spent his career — across books like Persuasive Games and Play Anything — arguing that the systems we build carry values whether we intend them to or not. Here he turns that lens on the ordinary objects most of us stopped noticing long ago. For designers, this is becoming more and more relevant. Ian argues that somewhere between the mid-90s and now, user-centered design quietly mutated into outcome-oriented design — we kept the language of user experience while the goals drifted toward the organization instead of the person. But this isn't nostalgia or a plea for friction. Gratification, he insists, is easy. It's already happening to you all the time. The designer's job isn't to add friction, but to notice where the sensory life has quietly drained out of the things we build, and to re-introduce it. And the challenge he leaves us with is deceptively simple: get curious. The Small Stuff is out now. You can find Ian at bogost.com. Dr. Ian Bogost is a writer, designer, and scholar of media and technology. He is the Barbara and David Thomas Distinguished Professor and Assistant Vice Provost at Washington University in St. Louis. At WashU, he is appointed in three colleges and the co-executive director of the Office of Public Scholarship. Bogost is also a contributing writer at The Atlantic and the founding partner of Persuasive Games LLC, a game and design studio. He is the author of 11 books, most recently The Small Stuff: How to Lead a More Gratifying Life. Bogost's award-winning games and artworks, which include Cow Clicker and A Slow Year have been played by millions of people and held in permanent collections around the world, including at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. *** Premium Episodes on Design Better This ad-supported episode is available to everyone. If you'd like to hear it ad-free, upgrade to our premium subscription, where you'll get an additional 2 ad-free episodes per month (4 total). Premium subscribers also get access to the documentary Design Disruptors and our growing library of books. New premium subscriber benefit: we've launched a private Slack workspace…join now to connect with designers, product leaders & creative practitioners in our community. And get a behind-the-scenes pass to every episode with The Roundup, where each week we bring you insights and actionable tactics from recent episodes. You'll also get access to our monthly AMAs with former guests, ad-free episodes, discounts and early access to workshops, and our monthly newsletter The Brief that compiles salient insights, quotes, readings, and creative processes uncovered in the show. And subscribers at the annual level now get access to the Design Better Toolkit, which gets you major discounts and free access to tools and courses that will help you unlock new skills, make your workflow more efficient, and take your creativity further. Upgrade to paid Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, we explore the creative paradox that sometimes the best work begins when we stop trying to produce our "best work." We revisit the story of Richard Feynman, who rediscovered his passion for physics by indulging in what seemed like trivial curiosity—with world-changing consequences.We're joined first by Ian Bogost, author of The Small Stuff, professor, writer, and game designer, who unpacks the idea of “gratification”—the sensory enchantment of everyday life—and why chasing only the "big stuff" means missing the moments that actually comprise our experience . We examine the relentless march toward efficiency and abstraction, the threat of dematerialization, and practical strategies for reclaiming a more embodied, present approach to work and life.After the break, Jia Jiang, author of Easy Discipline, explains why enduring endless grind isn't the recipe for lasting success—or personal satisfaction. Drawing on his own journey from ambition-driven burnout to a more sustainable, enjoyable approach, Jia Jiang reveals his E.A.S.Y. framework (Enjoyment, Artistry, Systems, Yourself) for building discipline that doesn't feel like drudgery.We unpack why presence—not just productivity—fuels creative brilliance, how seeking “orthogonal” experiences can reawaken genuine engagement, and why you'll go further by learning to love the process rather than trying to force yourself through it.Five Key LearningsGratification Overrides Big Goals: The richest experiences come from moment-to-moment sensory engagement, not from deferred, infrequent milestones (Ian Bogost at 04:42).Dematerialization Is Draining: Our digital conveniences come at a cost: They strip away physicality, leading to a disconnect from what's most enjoyable in the work itself (Ian Bogost at 08:39).Presence Is the Antidote: Simply allowing ourselves to fully experience sensory details—rather than obsessively planning or optimizing—can restore lost gratification (Ian Bogost at 11:02).Enjoyment Enables Sustained Effort: Lasting discipline isn't about brute force; it's about making the journey itself rewarding so that you can do hard things for longer (Jia Jiang at 25:42).Everyone's Discipline Is Individual: Advice from others is often based on their optimization, not yours; embracing your own strengths, rhythms, and sources of enjoyment is critical to building sustainable creative practices (Jia Jiang at 36:16).Get full interviews and bonus content for free! Just join the list at DailyCreativePlus.com.Mentioned in this episode:To listen to the full interviews from today's episode, as well as receive bonus content and deep dive insights from the episode, visit DailyCreativePlus.com and join Daily Creative+.The Brave Habit is available nowMy new book will help you make bravery a habit in your life, your leadership, and your work. Discover how to develop the two qualities that lead to brave action: Optimistic Vision and Agency. Buy The Brave Habit wherever books are sold, or learn more at TheBraveHabit.com.

Professor and writer Ian Bogost shares insights from his new book,  The Small Stuff: How to Lead a More Gratifying Life. which argues that technology has distanced us from sensory experience -- a process called "dematerialization." He explains how to reclaim the joy of our senses by holding space for tiny experiences, like the feeling of everyday objects in your hand, the clinking of a dish, or the smell of a rose.  Cover art courtesy of the author Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You've heard people say, "Good things come to those who wait." Most of us absorbed that lesson somewhere along the way — save the good stuff, delay the pleasure, wait until you've earned it. But my guest today says that idea backfires. My guest is Ian Bogost, a contributing writer at The Atlantic and a professor at Washington University in St. Louis. His new book is The Small Stuff. Some of the things we discuss are: The three different types of contentment — and why we tend to overlook the most available one What the famous marshmallow test actually got wrong about delayed gratification Why saving the perfume, the outfit, or the "good china" for a special occasion might be backfiring The one-step trick to noticing small pleasures without having to add anything new to your routine Why gratification isn't the same as mindfulness — and why Ian has issues with how mindfulness gets sold to us How modern life has quietly stripped away small sensory pleasures (Ian calls it "dematerialization") Why you don't have to choose between being present and taking a picture — you can do both How stacking tiny moments of gratification can build a buffer that makes hard days hurt less The Therapist's Take: My top three strategies for finding more small pleasures starting today Related Episodes ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠322 — This 60-Second Mental Strength Play Will Help You Stop Procrastinating (And It Doesn't Require Willpower)⁠ 270 — You Don't Need More Self-Discipline: 2 Strategies to Succeed Without It Links & Resources The Small Stuff Connect with the Show Buy a copy of⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Connect with Amy on Instagram —⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@AmyMorinAuthor⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Sign Up for My Newsletter —⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://amymorinlcsw.com/newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Sponsors Helix Sleep —Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠helixsleep.com/STRONGER⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to get 20% off sitewide   AirDoctor — Head to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠AirDoctorPro.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠and use promo code STRONGER to get UP TO $300 off today! One Skin — Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠oneskin.co/STRONGER⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use code stronger to get up to 30% off your first 3 subscription orders Quince — Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Quince.com/stronger⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns! Boll & Branch — Get 20% off sitewide at ⁠⁠BollAndBranch.com/stronger⁠⁠ with code stronger. Subscribe to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Mentally Stronger Premium⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for exclusive content like weekly bonus episodes, mental strength challenges, and office hours with me. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Photo by Michael Martine, South Yarmouth MA, July 2026 Published 13 July 2026 e561 with Michael, Andy and Michael – arial-aquatic robotic locomotion, Puffin wingspan, e-ink mini PDAs, maker marketplaces such as Tindie, Lectronz and SmallRun, custom vinyl, cooperative LLMs and a whole lot more! Michael, Andy and Michael get things started with a new robot that can fly and swim, and transition between the air and water on it's own.  This amazing feat was inspired by diving birds such as the puffin.  This story inspired the cohosts to consider the wingspan of the puffin, and while writing up the show notes, the Wingspan boarding game and the airborne velocity of the swallow. Switching to non-robotic tech, the team take a look at the PocketMage PDA, which then opens up a whole discussion on (dare we say vintage) other PDAs, and the maker culture of EMF Camp, where Andy is spending some time as discussed in e560.  Crowdsupply's Open Printer article primed the team for a number of favorite maker marketplaces which you can check out in the show notes below.  Examples like Tindie, Lectronz and SmallRun all get the benefit of the Games at Work bump.  And a google search turns up another SmallRun website that provides the service of creating custom vinyl for recordings, and inspires Andy on a potential gift. The team then looks at a couple of YouTube videos where a number of different LLMs are tasked to work collaboratively to play Pico Park.  You can see these below, and it is an intriguing way to consider how multiple autonomous agents may work together (or not) in other contexts.  In e173 in 2017, the cohosts discussed an example of two Google Homes talked to one another on Twitch. Rounding out the episode, there is an Inc article on what happened when the Starbucks app had a failure.  The behavior was very reminiscent of last week's discussion on Ian Bogost's new book, The Small Stuff.  The article concludes “Connivence creates its own fragility” – what an interesting turn of phrase.   Have you had an example of when convenience created fragility for you?  Have your bots

Will 2026 be one of those grand historical years that change the world — like 1917, 1789 or 1968? Not according to Keith Teare, publisher of That Was The Week newsletter and co-host of our weekly tech roundup. For Keith, the best historical analogy is 1905, the year of the first abortive Russian revolution. The year that didn't change the world. Keith's latest tech newsletter asks “What Time Is It?” His answer is that we have “multiple clocks” — micro and macro, short, medium, and long term to make sense of our current AI moment. This week, for example, OpenAI and Anthropic both shipped work-focused products, and most of the world hasn't noticed. Thus his allusion to 1905. We are on the brink of massive change. But nothing is going to change. Not quite yet. Until everything does. Five Takeaways •       It's 1905 in the AI Economy. Keith's answer to the what-time-is-it question is the failed Russian revolution — the moment when the variables of transformation were all in motion but nothing was yet visible, and which took seventy years to fully play out. AI's radical change is real, he argues, but it is being experienced by a small number of people and is not yet generalized through the economy. The evidence of the week: OpenAI and Anthropic both shipped work-focused products — and most of the world shrugged. •       The Socialist Temptation of Slippery Sam. The Wall Street Journal frames Altman's offer of 5% of OpenAI to Washington as socialism creeping into Silicon Valley. Keith — who hated the word even when he was a communist — says the term has been Americanized into meaninglessness: it now just means the capitalist state doing more. What Altman is actually proposing is capitalism's end game — a sovereign wealth fund holding equity in the companies everybody wants to fund, so that private wealth creation reaches the point where everyone can imagine benefiting from it. The precise opposite of British Leyland. •       The Multiple Clocks. Keith's framework sorts the week's flood of AI news into micro and macro issues running on short, medium, and long-term timelines. At the micro-short corner sits deployment friction: Microsoft and Amazon spending billions on forward-deployed engineers, and Apple suing OpenAI. In the middle, work adapts — the human as the driver of AI rather than AI imposed on humans. At the top sits Arvind Narayanan's idea of AI as a “normal technology,” which deflates hysteria without deflating importance: electricity was a normal technology too, and it still changed everything — just slower than its loudest advocates expected. •       Abundance and Its Discontents. Matt Yglesias argues that saving capitalism requires radical land use reform, which reignites the show's longest-running argument. Keith's case: the Elizabeth Line and the congestion zone have redefined London, multiplying its effective land fifty-fold, and a house twenty minutes from the center can be had for a couple of hundred thousand pounds. Andrew's case: prices haven't fallen, London is more expensive than ever, and free is doing a lot of work as “a tendency, not an achievement.” The quarrel is adjourned until next week, with Keith cheerfully moonlighting as a real estate agent. •       Two Americas — and the Small Stuff. Ivan Krastev tells Yascha Mounk that American exceptionalism ran roughly from 1850 to Vietnam and has been replaced by defensive preservation — MAGA as a reaction to decline rather than a vision. Noah Smith's version: America can't build a passenger train, yet its AI industry is upending the world. And against John Battelle's worry that digital life has lost the plot, Keith offers the week's best rejoinder to Ian Bogost's small stuff: go back in history, and no one had time for small things. What we are living through is creeping abundance. The week closes with farewells — to Psion founder David Potter, a week after Om Malik. About the Guest Keith Teare is the founder and editor of the That Was The Week tech newsletter, and Andrew's weekly co-host. A British-born Silicon Valley entrepreneur and investor, he was a co-founder of TechCrunch and runs the Palo Alto–based venture firm SignalRank. He and Andrew have been arguing about technology — productively — every week for years. References: •       That Was The Week — Keith's newsletter; this week's edition asks what time it is in the AI economy and lays out the multiple clocks framework. •       The Wall Street Journal piece on the socialist temptation of Sam Altman, and Altman's proposal that the US government hold 5% of OpenAI. •       Arvind Narayanan — the Princeton computer scientist whose framing of AI as a “normal technology” anchors the civilizational clock. •       Matt Yglesias — whose piece argues that saving capitalism requires radical land use reform. •       Ivan Krastev — the Bulgarian political theorist, interviewed in Yascha Mounk's Persuasion on why America has lost faith in itself. •       Noah Smith and Paul Krugman — on the American age and the perennial Europe-versus-US economic comparison, respectively. •       John Battelle — the Web 2.0 pioneer asking whether we've lost the plot, quoting Ian Bogost in Wired. •       The Small Stuff: How to Lead a More Gratifying Life by Ian Bogost (Simon & Schuster) — the interview of the week on Keen On America. •       The New Geography of Innovation by Mehran Gul (Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster) — also on this week's show, on America, China, and everyone else. •       David Potter — the founder of Psion, builder of the first handheld computer and later a governor of the Bank of England, who died this week and is Keith's post of the week. About Keen On America Nobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States — hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 3,000 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting. Website Substack YouTube

Ian Bogost shares why everyday moments are the foundation of a gratifying life–at work and beyond.— YOU'LL LEARN — 1) Why small moments matter so much2) How dematerialization is hurting you–and what to do about it3) Tiny upgrades that enhance every day Subscribe or visit AwesomeAtYourJob.com/ep1166 for clickable versions of the links below. — ABOUT IAN — Dr. Ian Bogost is a writer, designer, and scholar of media and technology. He is a contributing writer at The Atlantic, the Barbara and David Thomas Distinguished Professor and Assistant Vice Provost at Washington University in St. Louis, and a founding partner at Persuasive Games LLC. His latest book is The Small Stuff: How to Lead a More Gratifying Life.• Book: The Small Stuff: The Sensory Enchantment of Everyday Life• Website: SmallStuffBook.com• Website: Bogost.com— RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THE SHOW — • Book: Mezzanine by Nicholson Baker• Past episode: 1133: The Philosophy of Scores: How to Measure What Truly Matters and Stop Playing Someone Else's Game with C. Thi Nguyen— THANK YOU SPONSORS! — • Shopify. Sign up for your free trial at Shopify.com/awesomepod• Monarch. Get 50% off your first year with code AWESOME at Monarch.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Whether it's the sensory joy of homemade gelato or the privacy risks baked into AI-powered apps, the conversation spotlights how technology is transforming even the simplest moments—and why it's not always for the better. OpenAI gets permission to roll out GPT-5.6 to the public on July 9 Beijing is looking at curbing overseas access to China's top AI models, sources say OpenAI floats giving Trump administration 5 percent cut of AI boom Mark Zuckerberg tells staff that AI agents haven't progressed as quickly as he'd hoped Meta money grab is a plea to investors: Stick with us Meta just launched a new AI generator, Muse Image, and users are already pushing back over use of their photos Meta tests 'super sensing' AI glasses that can capture every moment Google's AI buildout drove 37% increase in electricity use in 2025 Nvidia's Kyber AI rack slips to 2028, and one circuit board is to blame Cloudflare will filter out web crawlers that serve AI companies A Twist in This Year's Strangest Literary AI Scandal Midjourney wants Hollywood studios to reveal the details of their AI usage Brown Professor Suspects Majority of His Class Used AI to Cheat Reid Hoffman: Introducing Tokens to the Future: Token Grants to AI Builders Tilly Norwood to Lead New Movie 'Misaligned,' Marking Feature Debut for AI 'Actor' MaximeRivest/riddle: The diary of Tom Riddle for the reMarkable Paper Pro — write with your pen, the page drinks your ink and answers in a flowing hand lfnovo/open-notebook: An Open Source implementation of Notebook LM with more flexibility and features GuideAlong Hosts: Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis, and Paris Martineau Guest: Ian Bogost Download or subscribe to Intelligent Machines at https://twit.tv/shows/intelligent-machines. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: blackhat.com/us-26 and use code TWIT helixsleep.com/machines gusto.com/machines

With all the books, podcasts and even business school classes instructing us how to be happier, the path to contentment can be a lot of work. But writer Ian Bogost urges us to appreciate a feeling less grand than happiness: gratification. He finds gratification in paying attention to the small sensory actions of the everyday – the feel of using a stick shift, the sound of paint being slathered on a wall, the texture of a couch cushion. We talk to Bogost about his new book, “The Small Stuff: How to Lead a More Gratifying Life." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Whether it's the sensory joy of homemade gelato or the privacy risks baked into AI-powered apps, the conversation spotlights how technology is transforming even the simplest moments—and why it's not always for the better. OpenAI gets permission to roll out GPT-5.6 to the public on July 9 Beijing is looking at curbing overseas access to China's top AI models, sources say OpenAI floats giving Trump administration 5 percent cut of AI boom Mark Zuckerberg tells staff that AI agents haven't progressed as quickly as he'd hoped Meta money grab is a plea to investors: Stick with us Meta just launched a new AI generator, Muse Image, and users are already pushing back over use of their photos Meta tests 'super sensing' AI glasses that can capture every moment Google's AI buildout drove 37% increase in electricity use in 2025 Nvidia's Kyber AI rack slips to 2028, and one circuit board is to blame Cloudflare will filter out web crawlers that serve AI companies A Twist in This Year's Strangest Literary AI Scandal Midjourney wants Hollywood studios to reveal the details of their AI usage Brown Professor Suspects Majority of His Class Used AI to Cheat Reid Hoffman: Introducing Tokens to the Future: Token Grants to AI Builders Tilly Norwood to Lead New Movie 'Misaligned,' Marking Feature Debut for AI 'Actor' MaximeRivest/riddle: The diary of Tom Riddle for the reMarkable Paper Pro — write with your pen, the page drinks your ink and answers in a flowing hand lfnovo/open-notebook: An Open Source implementation of Notebook LM with more flexibility and features GuideAlong Hosts: Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis, and Paris Martineau Guest: Ian Bogost Download or subscribe to Intelligent Machines at https://twit.tv/shows/intelligent-machines. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: blackhat.com/us-26 and use code TWIT helixsleep.com/machines gusto.com/machines

Whether it's the sensory joy of homemade gelato or the privacy risks baked into AI-powered apps, the conversation spotlights how technology is transforming even the simplest moments—and why it's not always for the better. OpenAI gets permission to roll out GPT-5.6 to the public on July 9 Beijing is looking at curbing overseas access to China's top AI models, sources say OpenAI floats giving Trump administration 5 percent cut of AI boom Mark Zuckerberg tells staff that AI agents haven't progressed as quickly as he'd hoped Meta money grab is a plea to investors: Stick with us Meta just launched a new AI generator, Muse Image, and users are already pushing back over use of their photos Meta tests 'super sensing' AI glasses that can capture every moment Google's AI buildout drove 37% increase in electricity use in 2025 Nvidia's Kyber AI rack slips to 2028, and one circuit board is to blame Cloudflare will filter out web crawlers that serve AI companies A Twist in This Year's Strangest Literary AI Scandal Midjourney wants Hollywood studios to reveal the details of their AI usage Brown Professor Suspects Majority of His Class Used AI to Cheat Reid Hoffman: Introducing Tokens to the Future: Token Grants to AI Builders Tilly Norwood to Lead New Movie 'Misaligned,' Marking Feature Debut for AI 'Actor' MaximeRivest/riddle: The diary of Tom Riddle for the reMarkable Paper Pro — write with your pen, the page drinks your ink and answers in a flowing hand lfnovo/open-notebook: An Open Source implementation of Notebook LM with more flexibility and features GuideAlong Hosts: Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis, and Paris Martineau Guest: Ian Bogost Download or subscribe to Intelligent Machines at https://twit.tv/shows/intelligent-machines. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: blackhat.com/us-26 and use code TWIT helixsleep.com/machines gusto.com/machines

Whether it's the sensory joy of homemade gelato or the privacy risks baked into AI-powered apps, the conversation spotlights how technology is transforming even the simplest moments—and why it's not always for the better. OpenAI gets permission to roll out GPT-5.6 to the public on July 9 Beijing is looking at curbing overseas access to China's top AI models, sources say OpenAI floats giving Trump administration 5 percent cut of AI boom Mark Zuckerberg tells staff that AI agents haven't progressed as quickly as he'd hoped Meta money grab is a plea to investors: Stick with us Meta just launched a new AI generator, Muse Image, and users are already pushing back over use of their photos Meta tests 'super sensing' AI glasses that can capture every moment Google's AI buildout drove 37% increase in electricity use in 2025 Nvidia's Kyber AI rack slips to 2028, and one circuit board is to blame Cloudflare will filter out web crawlers that serve AI companies A Twist in This Year's Strangest Literary AI Scandal Midjourney wants Hollywood studios to reveal the details of their AI usage Brown Professor Suspects Majority of His Class Used AI to Cheat Reid Hoffman: Introducing Tokens to the Future: Token Grants to AI Builders Tilly Norwood to Lead New Movie 'Misaligned,' Marking Feature Debut for AI 'Actor' MaximeRivest/riddle: The diary of Tom Riddle for the reMarkable Paper Pro — write with your pen, the page drinks your ink and answers in a flowing hand lfnovo/open-notebook: An Open Source implementation of Notebook LM with more flexibility and features GuideAlong Hosts: Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis, and Paris Martineau Guest: Ian Bogost Download or subscribe to Intelligent Machines at https://twit.tv/shows/intelligent-machines. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: blackhat.com/us-26 and use code TWIT helixsleep.com/machines gusto.com/machines

“I crack the tab open, and I feel the cold metal… I hear the tink and give of the aluminum. And maybe when I'm done, I crush it into a small patty.” — Ian Bogost on the everyday enchantment of a Diet Coke can Don't sweat the small stuff is one of the most persistent (and annoying) mantras of the self-help industry. But the counter-intuitive Atlantic columnist Ian Bogost advises the opposite. In his new book, The Small Stuff, Bogost suggests that gratification lies in our appreciation of small stuff like the crinkle of empty Diet Coke cans and the foldability of plane tickets. Max Weber argued that disenchantment was the defining quality of modernity, but in The Small Stuff, Bogost maps a way back to it. What we need to get away from, he says, is “optimization” — metrics, feedback loops, money as a proxy for a place in heaven. Rather than the cult of delayed gratification, pick up that empty coke can and revel in its architectural glory. Or lick a tree. That's how to be enchanted in postmodernity. Five Takeaways •       Sweat the Small Stuff. Bogost inverts three decades of self-help orthodoxy: the small stuff is precisely what we should be sweating. The crack of a Diet Coke tab, the cold metal warming in your hand, the can crushed into a patty before the recycling bin — these sensory encounters are not where deep purpose lives, and Bogost never claims they are. But they recur every day, sometimes several times a day, and accepting them as meaningful rather than as noise to get through delivers what he calls a surprising payload of engagement and enchantment. For some it's Diet Coke; for others, woodworking, gardening, or the gear shift of a manual transmission. •       Dematerialization: How We Lost the World. The book's central diagnosis is what Bogost calls dematerialization — the slow disconnection from the physical world driven by convenience technologies. The QR code that replaced the concert ticket you might have pinned to a bulletin board. The automatic faucet you wave at awkwardly in the public restroom — which never works, and doesn't even save water; it just makes buildings easier to manage. The process is decades old, hardly limited to computers, and it stripped the texture from everyday life so gradually that nobody noticed what was being given up. •       It's Sensory, Not Physical — and Not Anti-Tech. This is not a go-touch-grass book. Bogost insists the small stuff is sensory rather than physical, and that smartphones are compelling precisely because they are delightful — the smooth glass that demands to be touched, the thunderstorm animation in the weather app. Everything is technology, including the clothes on your body and the language in your mouth. He gave his twelve-year-old a smartwatch rather than banning screens, because parenting means living in the same world as your kids — and kids must live a contemporary life to become the adults who invent the next one. •       We Already Got Rid of God — So Meaning Had to Move. Pressed on Weber and the Protestant ethic, Bogost argues that secularization emptied out the place where meaning used to live — good works justified by an infinite time in heaven — and replaced it with happiness, purpose, and wealth as proxies. The result is a hyper-optimized, future-oriented culture in which everything worth doing is worth doing for some later payoff. Bogost admits he struggles with this himself: the health wearable he wears while writing a book against quantification. What he loves about his morning walk isn't the step count. It's the twigs crunching underfoot. •       The Quietism Charge — and the AI Twist. Isn't this stoicism for the age of Trump, the same charge leveled at Heidegger's silence before the Nazis? Bogost anticipates the critique: we are and must be both political creatures and creatures who live moment to moment in our bodies — he asks no one to abandon the fight, only to stop missing the life underneath it. And the timing is no accident. As AI takes over the big stuff, Bogost suspects it may push us back into the sensory world — he consults ChatGPT about fixing his range thermostat, then goes and fixes it with his hands. About the Guest Ian Bogost is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and the author of eleven books, including The Small Stuff and Play Anything. He is the Barbara and David Thomas Distinguished Professor at Washington University in St. Louis, where he teaches computer science and engineering, film and media studies, and art and design. He is also an award-winning game designer whose work is held in collections including the Smithsonian American Art Museum. He is the author of The Small Stuff: How to Lead a More Gratifying Life (Simon & Schuster, July 7, 2026). References: •       The Small Stuff: How to Lead a More Gratifying Life by Ian Bogost (Simon & Schuster, July 7, 2026). The New Yorker: “Bogost's joy is infectious.” •       Play Anything: The Pleasure of Limits, the Uses of Boredom, and the Secret of Games (2016) — Bogost's earlier book, the subject of his June 2020 appearance on the show. •       Alien Phenomenology, or What It's Like to Be a Thing (2012) — Bogost's “straight up philosophy book” where he first explored the idea of wonder. •       Max Weber — the German sociologist who identified disenchantment as the defining quality of modernity, and whose The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism frames the discussion of delayed gratification and the afterlife. •       Matthew Crawford — mutual friend of host and guest, author of Shop Class as Soulcraft and The World Beyond Your Head, earlier explorers of the same terrain. •       Martin Heidegger — the philosopher whose ideas of thrownness and being-in-the-world haunt the book, though his name never appears in it, and whose Nazi-era quietism frames the political critique. About Keen On America Nobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States — hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 3,000 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting. Website Substack 

Whether it's the sensory joy of homemade gelato or the privacy risks baked into AI-powered apps, the conversation spotlights how technology is transforming even the simplest moments—and why it's not always for the better. OpenAI gets permission to roll out GPT-5.6 to the public on July 9 Beijing is looking at curbing overseas access to China's top AI models, sources say OpenAI floats giving Trump administration 5 percent cut of AI boom Mark Zuckerberg tells staff that AI agents haven't progressed as quickly as he'd hoped Meta money grab is a plea to investors: Stick with us Meta just launched a new AI generator, Muse Image, and users are already pushing back over use of their photos Meta tests 'super sensing' AI glasses that can capture every moment Google's AI buildout drove 37% increase in electricity use in 2025 Nvidia's Kyber AI rack slips to 2028, and one circuit board is to blame Cloudflare will filter out web crawlers that serve AI companies A Twist in This Year's Strangest Literary AI Scandal Midjourney wants Hollywood studios to reveal the details of their AI usage Brown Professor Suspects Majority of His Class Used AI to Cheat Reid Hoffman: Introducing Tokens to the Future: Token Grants to AI Builders Tilly Norwood to Lead New Movie 'Misaligned,' Marking Feature Debut for AI 'Actor' MaximeRivest/riddle: The diary of Tom Riddle for the reMarkable Paper Pro — write with your pen, the page drinks your ink and answers in a flowing hand lfnovo/open-notebook: An Open Source implementation of Notebook LM with more flexibility and features GuideAlong Hosts: Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis, and Paris Martineau Guest: Ian Bogost Download or subscribe to Intelligent Machines at https://twit.tv/shows/intelligent-machines. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: blackhat.com/us-26 and use code TWIT helixsleep.com/machines gusto.com/machines

Whether it's the sensory joy of homemade gelato or the privacy risks baked into AI-powered apps, the conversation spotlights how technology is transforming even the simplest moments—and why it's not always for the better. OpenAI gets permission to roll out GPT-5.6 to the public on July 9 Beijing is looking at curbing overseas access to China's top AI models, sources say OpenAI floats giving Trump administration 5 percent cut of AI boom Mark Zuckerberg tells staff that AI agents haven't progressed as quickly as he'd hoped Meta money grab is a plea to investors: Stick with us Meta just launched a new AI generator, Muse Image, and users are already pushing back over use of their photos Meta tests 'super sensing' AI glasses that can capture every moment Google's AI buildout drove 37% increase in electricity use in 2025 Nvidia's Kyber AI rack slips to 2028, and one circuit board is to blame Cloudflare will filter out web crawlers that serve AI companies A Twist in This Year's Strangest Literary AI Scandal Midjourney wants Hollywood studios to reveal the details of their AI usage Brown Professor Suspects Majority of His Class Used AI to Cheat Reid Hoffman: Introducing Tokens to the Future: Token Grants to AI Builders Tilly Norwood to Lead New Movie 'Misaligned,' Marking Feature Debut for AI 'Actor' MaximeRivest/riddle: The diary of Tom Riddle for the reMarkable Paper Pro — write with your pen, the page drinks your ink and answers in a flowing hand lfnovo/open-notebook: An Open Source implementation of Notebook LM with more flexibility and features GuideAlong Hosts: Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis, and Paris Martineau Guest: Ian Bogost Download or subscribe to Intelligent Machines at https://twit.tv/shows/intelligent-machines. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: blackhat.com/us-26 and use code TWIT helixsleep.com/machines gusto.com/machines

We often look for happiness in big, emotional moments but something as simple as touching grass can spark joy. Ian Bogost joins guest host Paige Phelps to discuss the difference between satisfaction and gratification.  Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Technology has made a lot of things better and more convenient — but somewhere along the way, it's also made some parts of everyday life a little less satisfying. In this episode, Washington University professor Ian Bogost discusses his new book, “The Small Stuff: How to Lead a More Gratifying Life.” Bogost argues modern technology has stripped away many of the small, everyday experiences that once brought us joy. Rather than advocating for a return to the past, he encourages us to pay closer attention to simple moments that can still bring gratification and a greater sense of connection to the world around us.

In this episode of the Near Future Laboratory Podcast, I talk with my old friend Ian Bogost about his new book, “The Small Stuff: How to Lead a More Gratifying Life” — a funny (like..I laughed out loud) , generous, and quietly radical invitation to recover the sensory enchantment of everyday life.Ian's book begins with ordinary things: stick shifts, toasters, paper cups, plastic film, doorknobs, faucets, pre-ordering shirts, Diet Coke cans, plunger force cups when they are missing their handle, the texture of a phone case, the sound of ice in a motel ice bucket. Of course our conversation quickly opens into something larger, which I think Ian has been asking for awhile: how modern life has dematerialized so many of our encounters with the world, replacing small tactile gratifications with convenience, automation, frictionless interfaces, and screens.What I especially loved about this conversation is that Ian is not making a nostalgic argument for going backward. He is not saying we need to abandon technology or recreate some lost analog past. Instead, he is asking us to accept what the world is already offering everyday: these small, recurring, very much embodied encounters that make up the actual texture of a life. This isn't “mindfulness” as another productivity technique. Nor is it a kind of self-improvement as a grind. Ian is wondering about the possibility that contentment might be right in front of is, even as we appear to be just pulling the pull-tab on a can of suds; it's under our fingertips, in our peripheral vision, in the overlooked background of the day.We talk about the origins of the book, Ian's long path from games and object-oriented philosophy to ordinary experience, the decline of sensory life, why curiosity may be a virtue worth defending, how to “bring the background into the foreground,” and why gratification and imagination might belong to the same family of openness.It is a conversation about small stuff, which means it is also a conversation about almost everything.https://smallstuffbook.comhttps://bogost.comhttps://www.theatlantic.com/author/ian-bogost/

In this episode, hosts Lee-Sean Huang and Giulia Donatello sit down with Ian Bogost, a writer, designer, media scholar, contributing writer at The Atlantic, and professor at Washington University in St. Louis. Together, they explore the concept of "dematerialization" and the core ideas behind his latest book, This Small Stuff: How to Lead a More Gratifying Life. Ian shares how his multifaceted career, navigating both software design and cultural criticism, functions as a dialectical machine for understanding how human meaning is constructed. He challenges contemporary design dogmas around "frictionlessness" and outcomes-based UX, offering a refreshing invitation for designers to embrace mundane constraints, celebrate accidental experience, and reconnect with the sensory enchantment of everyday life.In This EpisodeThe designer-critic dialectic. Ian describes his career as a perpetual cycle between making and criticizing. For him, creating an object or game is a method of asking a question, while writing criticism is a vehicle for answering it—both serving the ultimate mystery of how humans derive meaning. Happiness vs. satisfaction vs. gratification. Ian breaks down three tiers of contentment. While happiness looks at long-term macro circumstances, satisfaction focuses on the pride of completing a project, and gratification is the fleeting, immediate sensory enchantment of the present moment—like ice clinking in a water bottle. The "wicked problem" of the modern door. Revisiting Don Norman's famous concept, Ian argues that modern doors don't fail due to bad design, but from an accumulation of competing successes. Fire codes, ADA compliance, and motorized automation layer, so many good intentions that the physical object ends up resisting us. The outcome trap of experience design. Ian observes that as design became heavily filtered through the computing sector, fields like interaction and UX design slowly stopped prioritizing actual experience. Instead, they focused intensely on business outcomes and optimized targets for organizations. Why "meaningful friction" is the wrong answer. Addressing the push to bring back "meaningful friction" to combat ultra-smooth glass screens, Ian calls the trend wrongheaded. Users don't want a task to be harder; they want a tactile loop of sensory connection to the machine, like a knob turning in defined physical increments. The vicarious gratification of ASMR. Reflecting on digital phenomena like ASMR and online "drain-clearing" videos, Ian views these creators as heroes. By treating ordinary objects with deep respect, they model a curiosity that can transform how viewers interact with their own everyday environments.  Living life sideways through orthogonality. Ian advocates for "orthogonality"—diversifying one's diet of sensory encounters by crossing boundaries into entirely different fields. True innovation arises from deeply exploring secondary constraints and productively marrying two completely unrelated domains. ResourcesIan Bogost's Official Website – https://bogost.com/This Small Stuff: How to Lead a More Gratifying Life by Ian Bogost – https://amzn.to/4ypiHBRThe Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman – https://amzn.to/4gWhSd8 Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames by Ian Bogost – https://amzn.to/4p5IQBf Play Anything: The Pleasure of Limits, the Uses of Boredom, and the Secret of Games by Ian Bogost – https://amzn.to/4eZwgyD Julian Bleecker – https://julianbleecker.com/ Bruce Sterling – https://bruces.medium.com/ Listener feedback and voicemails – podcast@aiga.org 

People often assume that someone with brown eyes appears more trustworthy than someone with blue eyes. Research suggests there may be something to that belief—but not for the reason most people think. In fact, eye color may have very little to do with it. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3541379/ Pain seems simple. You get hurt, you feel pain. Problem solved. Except it isn't that simple at all. Why can two people experience the same injury yet report very different levels of pain? How can amputees feel excruciating pain in a limb that no longer exists? Scientists now understand that pain is not merely a signal sent from the body to the brain. Instead, pain is a complex experience shaped by biology, psychology, memory, expectations, emotions, and environment. Dr. Rachel Zoffness, a leading pain expert on the faculty at UCSF School of Medicine, joins me to explain what modern science has discovered about pain, why many traditional assumptions about it are wrong, and how understanding pain differently may help people suffer less. She is author of Tell Me Where It Hurts: The New Science of Pain and How to Heal (https://amzn.to/4afunMR). Life has become incredibly convenient. We no longer unfold paper maps, collect ticket stubs, browse record stores, save newspaper clippings, or carry around many of the physical objects that once filled everyday life. Digital technology has made countless tasks faster and easier—but has something been lost along the way? Ian Bogost believes the answer is yes. He argues that many of the small physical experiences we've eliminated weren't just clutter or inefficiency. They added texture, meaning, memory, and satisfaction to life. In our conversation, he explains how the disappearance of these seemingly insignificant things may be quietly changing our relationship with the world and what we can do to reclaim some of what we've lost. Ian is a staff writer at The Atlantic and author of The Small Stuff: How to Lead a More Gratifying Life (https://amzn.to/3SDVFXf). You've probably heard the travel hack: search for airline tickets too many times and the price will go up. That's why some people clear their browser history, use incognito mode, or switch devices before booking a flight. But does any of that actually work? The answer may surprise you. https://nypost.com/2025/06/03/lifestyle/will-clearing-your-search-history-make-flight-prices-cheaper-experts-reveal-the-surprising-truth/ PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS WAYFAIR: Ready to upgrade your home for way less? Head to https://Wayfair.com right now to shop all things home and get your space ready for less.  RULA: Thousands of people are already using Rula to get affordable, high-quality therapy that's actually covered by insurance. Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Rula.com/sysk⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to get started. QUINCE: Elevate your summer wardrobe. Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Quince.com/sysk⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada, too! SHOPIFY: It's time to turn those "what ifs" into CHA CHING with Shopify Today! Sign up for your $1 per month trail and start selling today at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Shopify.com/sysk⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Photo by nik biziuk on Unsplash Published 6 July 2026 e560 with Andy, Michael and Michael – stickshift & phone handsets with Ian Bogost, camping at EMF Camp 2026 & Mountain Quest 2026, brain cooling, dwarf lemurs, World Cup 2026, USMNT, ThreeLions, the tokenpocalypse and a whole lot more! Andy, Michael and Michael get things started with a TechCrunch interview with Ian Bogost on his about to be published book, The Small Stuff.  Building on the success of his article on the demise of the stick shift, Ian wrote a book that focuses on the details of life that make a difference.  The cohosts harken back all the way to episode 17 in August of 2012 when Ian was a guest on the podcast.  Part of the discussion from the article focused on the nature of the telephone handset, which brought the EMF Camp telecommunications setup to mind for Andy.  Electromagnetic Telecom allows anyone attending EMF to register a phone number on the network and communicate with other participants.  Speaking of camping, Michael M shares an overview video of Mountain Quest 2026, where he was a participant the prior weekend in the mountains of North Carolina. It's hot in the UK and in North Carolina – so the maker article about the brain turbocharger looked to be a welcome relief from the heat.  This modified construction helmet recognizes when the user has been thinking hard and signals multiple fans built into the helmet to cool things down so the user's brain does not overheat from overclocking.   Recent discussions on the podcast about the Steam hardware made the BC250 an intriguing topic.  Michael R recounts his recent trip to the Duke Lemur Center to see the small Fat-tailed dwarf lemur.  And in the small and cool category, the team considers the “Impossible Watch” from D1 Milano. The cohosts then take a brief World Cup interlude from the tech discussions.  While neither Michael is what you may consider a ‘bandwagon' fan for the World Cup, the Lay's potato chip television commercial is pretty funny.  Check out the embedded video below.  At the time of recording and writing, both England and the USA are still in the hunt for the cup – best wishes to both national teams!  Wrapping up the episode, the team discusses the tokenpocalypse.  The 404 Media article highlights how companies are have gone from tokenmaxxing to tokenhoarding as the price point for AI is soaring. Have you been impacted by restrictions on your token usage?  Have your bots

Universities tried to be all things to all people. That model may not be working anymore. Adam Harris is joined by Ian Bogost, Atlantic contributing writer and a professor at Washington University in St. Louis, to discuss the state of higher education. On campuses across the country, students are graduating into a job market with questions on their mind. What kind of career is stable in 2026? Will AI make it even harder to get an entry-level job? Was my education worth all the money it cost? For universities that are already facing federal funding cuts and enrollment declines, the identity crisis their graduates are facing is an extension of their own: Is the purpose of college just to get a good job, or is there more to it?  Colleges have been in rough spots before, but is it finally time to start rethinking their entire model? - - - Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You'll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Atlantic subscribers also get access to exclusive subscriber audio in Apple Podcasts. Subscribe today at TheAtlantic.com/Listener. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Game designer and Atlantic writer Ian Bogost joins to argue that the true joy of technology is not frictionlessness, but the small sensory pleasures and constraints that keep us tethered to real life. Discover how AI could push us back into the world, not just behind our screens. CSA and Security Experts on Mythos Planning Scoop: NSA using Anthropic's Mythos despite Defense Department blacklist Mozilla Used Anthropic's Mythos to Find and Fix 271 Bugs in Firefox Anthropic's most dangerous AI model just fell into the wrong hands News: Anthropic Removes Claude Code From $20-A-Month "Pro" Subscription Plan For New Users (Developing) Anthropic Changes Pricing to Bill Firms Based on AI Use Amid Compute Crunch Microsoft's GitHub grounds Copilot account sign-ups amid capacity crunch Token demand makes an AI bubble unlikely, says Michael Dell Anthropic bites back in the compute wars with Amazon partnership SpaceX Strikes Deal With Cursor for $60 Billion Google Cloud Releases New TPU Chip Lineup in Bid to Speed Up AI Qwen3.6-35B-A3B: Agentic coding power, now open to all Kimi K2.6 Tech Blog: Advancing Open-Source Coding Sam Altman's "proof of human" company pushes into mainstream services Humanoid robots race past humans in Beijing half-marathon, showing rapid advances This Beanie Is Designed to Read Your Thoughts Next Time You Order a Dairy Queen Blizzard, You May Be Talking to AI Chip Maker TSMC Is More Bullish Than Ever on AI, Despite Iran War AI traffic to US retailers rose 393% in Q1, and it's boosting their revenue too Stanford's AI Index finds China has nearly closed the performance gap with the US despite spending 23 times less New Movie Trailer Shows First AI-Generated Performance By a Major Star: the Late Val Kilmer We gave an AI a 3 year retail lease in SF and asked it to make a profit | Andon Labs This pasta sauce wants to record your family LeWorldModel: Stable End-to-End Joint-Embedding Predictive Architecture from Pixels Can AI judge journalism? A Thiel-backed startup says yes, even if it risks chilling whistleblowers Tokyo court rules movie and anime 'spoiler articles' are copyright infringement in landmark criminal case — detailed, monetized plot summaries land man in Japanese prison Meta to start capturing employee mouse movements, keystrokes for AI training data AI's New Training Data: Your Old Work Slacks And Emails Depths of Wikipedia GitHub - google-labs-code/design.md: A format specification for describing a visual identity to coding agents. DESIGN.md gives agents a persistent, structured understanding of a design system. Is Your Site Agent-Ready? Jeff's Gemini happy ending The Must-Have Item in Silicon Valley Is a $178 Sweater With a CEO's Face Hosts: Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis, and Paris Martineau Guests: Lucas and Ian Bogost Download or subscribe to Intelligent Machines at https://twit.tv/shows/intelligent-machines. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: webroot.com/twit monarch.com with code IM outsystems.com/twit

Game designer and Atlantic writer Ian Bogost joins to argue that the true joy of technology is not frictionlessness, but the small sensory pleasures and constraints that keep us tethered to real life. Discover how AI could push us back into the world, not just behind our screens. CSA and Security Experts on Mythos Planning Scoop: NSA using Anthropic's Mythos despite Defense Department blacklist Mozilla Used Anthropic's Mythos to Find and Fix 271 Bugs in Firefox Anthropic's most dangerous AI model just fell into the wrong hands News: Anthropic Removes Claude Code From $20-A-Month "Pro" Subscription Plan For New Users (Developing) Anthropic Changes Pricing to Bill Firms Based on AI Use Amid Compute Crunch Microsoft's GitHub grounds Copilot account sign-ups amid capacity crunch Token demand makes an AI bubble unlikely, says Michael Dell Anthropic bites back in the compute wars with Amazon partnership SpaceX Strikes Deal With Cursor for $60 Billion Google Cloud Releases New TPU Chip Lineup in Bid to Speed Up AI Qwen3.6-35B-A3B: Agentic coding power, now open to all Kimi K2.6 Tech Blog: Advancing Open-Source Coding Sam Altman's "proof of human" company pushes into mainstream services Humanoid robots race past humans in Beijing half-marathon, showing rapid advances This Beanie Is Designed to Read Your Thoughts Next Time You Order a Dairy Queen Blizzard, You May Be Talking to AI Chip Maker TSMC Is More Bullish Than Ever on AI, Despite Iran War AI traffic to US retailers rose 393% in Q1, and it's boosting their revenue too Stanford's AI Index finds China has nearly closed the performance gap with the US despite spending 23 times less New Movie Trailer Shows First AI-Generated Performance By a Major Star: the Late Val Kilmer We gave an AI a 3 year retail lease in SF and asked it to make a profit | Andon Labs This pasta sauce wants to record your family LeWorldModel: Stable End-to-End Joint-Embedding Predictive Architecture from Pixels Can AI judge journalism? A Thiel-backed startup says yes, even if it risks chilling whistleblowers Tokyo court rules movie and anime 'spoiler articles' are copyright infringement in landmark criminal case — detailed, monetized plot summaries land man in Japanese prison Meta to start capturing employee mouse movements, keystrokes for AI training data AI's New Training Data: Your Old Work Slacks And Emails Depths of Wikipedia GitHub - google-labs-code/design.md: A format specification for describing a visual identity to coding agents. DESIGN.md gives agents a persistent, structured understanding of a design system. Is Your Site Agent-Ready? Jeff's Gemini happy ending The Must-Have Item in Silicon Valley Is a $178 Sweater With a CEO's Face Hosts: Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis, and Paris Martineau Guests: Lucas and Ian Bogost Download or subscribe to Intelligent Machines at https://twit.tv/shows/intelligent-machines. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: webroot.com/twit monarch.com with code IM outsystems.com/twit

Game designer and Atlantic writer Ian Bogost joins to argue that the true joy of technology is not frictionlessness, but the small sensory pleasures and constraints that keep us tethered to real life. Discover how AI could push us back into the world, not just behind our screens. CSA and Security Experts on Mythos Planning Scoop: NSA using Anthropic's Mythos despite Defense Department blacklist Mozilla Used Anthropic's Mythos to Find and Fix 271 Bugs in Firefox Anthropic's most dangerous AI model just fell into the wrong hands News: Anthropic Removes Claude Code From $20-A-Month "Pro" Subscription Plan For New Users (Developing) Anthropic Changes Pricing to Bill Firms Based on AI Use Amid Compute Crunch Microsoft's GitHub grounds Copilot account sign-ups amid capacity crunch Token demand makes an AI bubble unlikely, says Michael Dell Anthropic bites back in the compute wars with Amazon partnership SpaceX Strikes Deal With Cursor for $60 Billion Google Cloud Releases New TPU Chip Lineup in Bid to Speed Up AI Qwen3.6-35B-A3B: Agentic coding power, now open to all Kimi K2.6 Tech Blog: Advancing Open-Source Coding Sam Altman's "proof of human" company pushes into mainstream services Humanoid robots race past humans in Beijing half-marathon, showing rapid advances This Beanie Is Designed to Read Your Thoughts Next Time You Order a Dairy Queen Blizzard, You May Be Talking to AI Chip Maker TSMC Is More Bullish Than Ever on AI, Despite Iran War AI traffic to US retailers rose 393% in Q1, and it's boosting their revenue too Stanford's AI Index finds China has nearly closed the performance gap with the US despite spending 23 times less New Movie Trailer Shows First AI-Generated Performance By a Major Star: the Late Val Kilmer We gave an AI a 3 year retail lease in SF and asked it to make a profit | Andon Labs This pasta sauce wants to record your family LeWorldModel: Stable End-to-End Joint-Embedding Predictive Architecture from Pixels Can AI judge journalism? A Thiel-backed startup says yes, even if it risks chilling whistleblowers Tokyo court rules movie and anime 'spoiler articles' are copyright infringement in landmark criminal case — detailed, monetized plot summaries land man in Japanese prison Meta to start capturing employee mouse movements, keystrokes for AI training data AI's New Training Data: Your Old Work Slacks And Emails Depths of Wikipedia GitHub - google-labs-code/design.md: A format specification for describing a visual identity to coding agents. DESIGN.md gives agents a persistent, structured understanding of a design system. Is Your Site Agent-Ready? Jeff's Gemini happy ending The Must-Have Item in Silicon Valley Is a $178 Sweater With a CEO's Face Hosts: Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis, and Paris Martineau Guests: Lucas and Ian Bogost Download or subscribe to Intelligent Machines at https://twit.tv/shows/intelligent-machines. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: webroot.com/twit monarch.com with code IM outsystems.com/twit

Game designer and Atlantic writer Ian Bogost joins to argue that the true joy of technology is not frictionlessness, but the small sensory pleasures and constraints that keep us tethered to real life. Discover how AI could push us back into the world, not just behind our screens. CSA and Security Experts on Mythos Planning Scoop: NSA using Anthropic's Mythos despite Defense Department blacklist Mozilla Used Anthropic's Mythos to Find and Fix 271 Bugs in Firefox Anthropic's most dangerous AI model just fell into the wrong hands News: Anthropic Removes Claude Code From $20-A-Month "Pro" Subscription Plan For New Users (Developing) Anthropic Changes Pricing to Bill Firms Based on AI Use Amid Compute Crunch Microsoft's GitHub grounds Copilot account sign-ups amid capacity crunch Token demand makes an AI bubble unlikely, says Michael Dell Anthropic bites back in the compute wars with Amazon partnership SpaceX Strikes Deal With Cursor for $60 Billion Google Cloud Releases New TPU Chip Lineup in Bid to Speed Up AI Qwen3.6-35B-A3B: Agentic coding power, now open to all Kimi K2.6 Tech Blog: Advancing Open-Source Coding Sam Altman's "proof of human" company pushes into mainstream services Humanoid robots race past humans in Beijing half-marathon, showing rapid advances This Beanie Is Designed to Read Your Thoughts Next Time You Order a Dairy Queen Blizzard, You May Be Talking to AI Chip Maker TSMC Is More Bullish Than Ever on AI, Despite Iran War AI traffic to US retailers rose 393% in Q1, and it's boosting their revenue too Stanford's AI Index finds China has nearly closed the performance gap with the US despite spending 23 times less New Movie Trailer Shows First AI-Generated Performance By a Major Star: the Late Val Kilmer We gave an AI a 3 year retail lease in SF and asked it to make a profit | Andon Labs This pasta sauce wants to record your family LeWorldModel: Stable End-to-End Joint-Embedding Predictive Architecture from Pixels Can AI judge journalism? A Thiel-backed startup says yes, even if it risks chilling whistleblowers Tokyo court rules movie and anime 'spoiler articles' are copyright infringement in landmark criminal case — detailed, monetized plot summaries land man in Japanese prison Meta to start capturing employee mouse movements, keystrokes for AI training data AI's New Training Data: Your Old Work Slacks And Emails Depths of Wikipedia GitHub - google-labs-code/design.md: A format specification for describing a visual identity to coding agents. DESIGN.md gives agents a persistent, structured understanding of a design system. Is Your Site Agent-Ready? Jeff's Gemini happy ending The Must-Have Item in Silicon Valley Is a $178 Sweater With a CEO's Face Hosts: Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis, and Paris Martineau Guests: Lucas and Ian Bogost Download or subscribe to Intelligent Machines at https://twit.tv/shows/intelligent-machines. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: webroot.com/twit monarch.com with code IM outsystems.com/twit

Game designer and Atlantic writer Ian Bogost joins to argue that the true joy of technology is not frictionlessness, but the small sensory pleasures and constraints that keep us tethered to real life. Discover how AI could push us back into the world, not just behind our screens. CSA and Security Experts on Mythos Planning Scoop: NSA using Anthropic's Mythos despite Defense Department blacklist Mozilla Used Anthropic's Mythos to Find and Fix 271 Bugs in Firefox Anthropic's most dangerous AI model just fell into the wrong hands News: Anthropic Removes Claude Code From $20-A-Month "Pro" Subscription Plan For New Users (Developing) Anthropic Changes Pricing to Bill Firms Based on AI Use Amid Compute Crunch Microsoft's GitHub grounds Copilot account sign-ups amid capacity crunch Token demand makes an AI bubble unlikely, says Michael Dell Anthropic bites back in the compute wars with Amazon partnership SpaceX Strikes Deal With Cursor for $60 Billion Google Cloud Releases New TPU Chip Lineup in Bid to Speed Up AI Qwen3.6-35B-A3B: Agentic coding power, now open to all Kimi K2.6 Tech Blog: Advancing Open-Source Coding Sam Altman's "proof of human" company pushes into mainstream services Humanoid robots race past humans in Beijing half-marathon, showing rapid advances This Beanie Is Designed to Read Your Thoughts Next Time You Order a Dairy Queen Blizzard, You May Be Talking to AI Chip Maker TSMC Is More Bullish Than Ever on AI, Despite Iran War AI traffic to US retailers rose 393% in Q1, and it's boosting their revenue too Stanford's AI Index finds China has nearly closed the performance gap with the US despite spending 23 times less New Movie Trailer Shows First AI-Generated Performance By a Major Star: the Late Val Kilmer We gave an AI a 3 year retail lease in SF and asked it to make a profit | Andon Labs This pasta sauce wants to record your family LeWorldModel: Stable End-to-End Joint-Embedding Predictive Architecture from Pixels Can AI judge journalism? A Thiel-backed startup says yes, even if it risks chilling whistleblowers Tokyo court rules movie and anime 'spoiler articles' are copyright infringement in landmark criminal case — detailed, monetized plot summaries land man in Japanese prison Meta to start capturing employee mouse movements, keystrokes for AI training data AI's New Training Data: Your Old Work Slacks And Emails Depths of Wikipedia GitHub - google-labs-code/design.md: A format specification for describing a visual identity to coding agents. DESIGN.md gives agents a persistent, structured understanding of a design system. Is Your Site Agent-Ready? Jeff's Gemini happy ending The Must-Have Item in Silicon Valley Is a $178 Sweater With a CEO's Face Hosts: Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis, and Paris Martineau Guests: Lucas and Ian Bogost Download or subscribe to Intelligent Machines at https://twit.tv/shows/intelligent-machines. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: webroot.com/twit monarch.com with code IM outsystems.com/twit

Game designer and Atlantic writer Ian Bogost joins to argue that the true joy of technology is not frictionlessness, but the small sensory pleasures and constraints that keep us tethered to real life. Discover how AI could push us back into the world, not just behind our screens. CSA and Security Experts on Mythos Planning Scoop: NSA using Anthropic's Mythos despite Defense Department blacklist Mozilla Used Anthropic's Mythos to Find and Fix 271 Bugs in Firefox Anthropic's most dangerous AI model just fell into the wrong hands News: Anthropic Removes Claude Code From $20-A-Month "Pro" Subscription Plan For New Users (Developing) Anthropic Changes Pricing to Bill Firms Based on AI Use Amid Compute Crunch Microsoft's GitHub grounds Copilot account sign-ups amid capacity crunch Token demand makes an AI bubble unlikely, says Michael Dell Anthropic bites back in the compute wars with Amazon partnership SpaceX Strikes Deal With Cursor for $60 Billion Google Cloud Releases New TPU Chip Lineup in Bid to Speed Up AI Qwen3.6-35B-A3B: Agentic coding power, now open to all Kimi K2.6 Tech Blog: Advancing Open-Source Coding Sam Altman's "proof of human" company pushes into mainstream services Humanoid robots race past humans in Beijing half-marathon, showing rapid advances This Beanie Is Designed to Read Your Thoughts Next Time You Order a Dairy Queen Blizzard, You May Be Talking to AI Chip Maker TSMC Is More Bullish Than Ever on AI, Despite Iran War AI traffic to US retailers rose 393% in Q1, and it's boosting their revenue too Stanford's AI Index finds China has nearly closed the performance gap with the US despite spending 23 times less New Movie Trailer Shows First AI-Generated Performance By a Major Star: the Late Val Kilmer We gave an AI a 3 year retail lease in SF and asked it to make a profit | Andon Labs This pasta sauce wants to record your family LeWorldModel: Stable End-to-End Joint-Embedding Predictive Architecture from Pixels Can AI judge journalism? A Thiel-backed startup says yes, even if it risks chilling whistleblowers Tokyo court rules movie and anime 'spoiler articles' are copyright infringement in landmark criminal case — detailed, monetized plot summaries land man in Japanese prison Meta to start capturing employee mouse movements, keystrokes for AI training data AI's New Training Data: Your Old Work Slacks And Emails Depths of Wikipedia GitHub - google-labs-code/design.md: A format specification for describing a visual identity to coding agents. DESIGN.md gives agents a persistent, structured understanding of a design system. Is Your Site Agent-Ready? Jeff's Gemini happy ending The Must-Have Item in Silicon Valley Is a $178 Sweater With a CEO's Face Hosts: Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis, and Paris Martineau Guests: Lucas and Ian Bogost Download or subscribe to Intelligent Machines at https://twit.tv/shows/intelligent-machines. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: webroot.com/twit monarch.com with code IM outsystems.com/twit

Discover all of the podcasts in our network, search for specific episodes, get the Optimal Living Daily workbook, and learn more at: OLDPodcast.com. Episode 3522: Nir Eyal reveals that distraction isn't caused by external triggers but by our urge to escape discomfort, and the solution is to make tedious tasks engaging. Drawing on Ian Bogost's ideas, he shows how curiosity, constraints, and deeper attention can transform even boring work into something immersive and meaningful. Read along with the original article(s) here: https://www.nirandfar.com/tedious-tasks/ Quotes to ponder: "Fun is not a feeling so much as an exhaust produced when an operator can treat something with dignity." "Fun is the aftermath of deliberately manipulating a familiar situation in a new way." "The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity." Episode references: The Office (U.S. TV series): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Office_(American_TV_series) Mary Poppins (film): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Poppins_(film) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Discover all of the podcasts in our network, search for specific episodes, get the Optimal Living Daily workbook, and learn more at: OLDPodcast.com. Episode 3522: Nir Eyal reveals that distraction isn't caused by external triggers but by our urge to escape discomfort, and the solution is to make tedious tasks engaging. Drawing on Ian Bogost's ideas, he shows how curiosity, constraints, and deeper attention can transform even boring work into something immersive and meaningful. Read along with the original article(s) here: https://www.nirandfar.com/tedious-tasks/ Quotes to ponder: "Fun is not a feeling so much as an exhaust produced when an operator can treat something with dignity." "Fun is the aftermath of deliberately manipulating a familiar situation in a new way." "The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity." Episode references: The Office (U.S. TV series): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Office_(American_TV_series) Mary Poppins (film): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Poppins_(film) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Discover all of the podcasts in our network, search for specific episodes, get the Optimal Living Daily workbook, and learn more at: OLDPodcast.com. Episode 3522: Nir Eyal reveals that distraction isn't caused by external triggers but by our urge to escape discomfort, and the solution is to make tedious tasks engaging. Drawing on Ian Bogost's ideas, he shows how curiosity, constraints, and deeper attention can transform even boring work into something immersive and meaningful. Read along with the original article(s) here: https://www.nirandfar.com/tedious-tasks/ Quotes to ponder: "Fun is not a feeling so much as an exhaust produced when an operator can treat something with dignity." "Fun is the aftermath of deliberately manipulating a familiar situation in a new way." "The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity." Episode references: The Office (U.S. TV series): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Office_(American_TV_series) Mary Poppins (film): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Poppins_(film) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this week's conversation between Dr. James Emery White and co-host Alexis Drye, they discuss the rapidly changing landscape of Christian wellness. The wellness industry is now a multi-trillion dollar global market, one that some within the Christian faith are aiming to capitalize on. They are taking culture's focus on prevention and lifestyle choices and washing all of it in faith - putting a Christian label or a Christian personality behind it to move a product. And “Christian” social media influencers are having a lot of success in gaining the trust of other Christians. Episode Links Alexis mentioned the article that prompted today's discussion written by Kelsey Kramer McGinnis in Christianity Today titled “‘No Guardrails' for Some Christian Wellness Influencers.” In it she notes how influencers are using Christian language and isolated Bible verses to sell everything from energy drinks to supplements, skin care to gym clothes. And the lack of guardrails is a huge concern, particularly when it's spreading distrust of the medical world. In response, Dr. White outlined what a social media influencer is. We had an earlier podcast episode on this topic that you can go back and listen to for a deeper discussion about influencers: CCP128: On Social Media Influencers. He also spent some time outlining the disproportionate influence that YouTube has had on our culture. Here's another past podcast episode that you can check out for more on this topic: CCP149: On YouTube. Finally, there are four additional articles that we'd encourage you to check out that were helpful sources for today's conversation. You can get to them by clicking the titles below: Coralie Kraft, “Why Some Teenage Girls Are Trading Medicine for MAHA,” The New York Times. Alexa Lee, “9 influencers shaping health information online, for better or worse,” STAT News. Ilana Amselem, “I Developed A Dark Obsession With 'Wellness.' Within Months, It Threatened To Consume My Life.” HuffPost. Ian Bogost, “People Are Thinking About Looksmaxxing All Wrong,” The Atlantic. For those of you who are new to Church & Culture, we'd love to invite you to subscribe (for free of course) to the twice-weekly Church & Culture blog and check out the Daily Headline News - a collection of headlines from around the globe each weekday. We'd also love to hear from you if there is a topic that you'd like to see discussed on the Church & Culture Podcast in an upcoming episode. You can find the form to submit your questions at the bottom of the podcast page HERE.

Outlouders, enjoy this free taster of Mia Freedman on today's subscriber episode. Listen to the full conversation — 'Mia's Diary Note: Burnout & Bras & Books, Oh My!' — at 5 pm TODAY. What do you mean, you're not a subscriber yet? Solve that problem HERE. Mia is deep in a nostalgia hole this week after bingeing the JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy series, Love Story. It turns out, seeing a world without DMs, TikTok trends, or the urge to live-stream your breakfast has her ready to trade her smartphone for a flip phone and some chic minimalism. Are we actually 'connected' or just... exhausted? In this episode: The 'Always On' Burnout: Mia gets real about the specific brand of fatigue that comes from being reachable 24/7. When did 'relaxing' become just another word for 'scrolling in a different room'? The Content Trap: Why are we obsessed with turning every family moment into a production for the group chat? Mia asks if it’s possible to just exist — without looking for the best lighting.Mia's Reccos The retro chocolate bar making a comeback in Mia’s pantry. The sports bra finally doing the literal heavy lifting. The memoir sparking a heated debate: is supporting your partner’s career a romantic gesture or a professional death wish? Remember, this is your free sample of today's subs episode. The full debrief drops for subscribers at 5pm. Get 25% off Nala with your Mamamia subscription. Click here to get your code ends April 1st. What To Listen To Next: Listen to our latest episode: A Dangerous Influencer Trend & Scurrilous Lip-Reading Gossip Listen: 'Are Flaps In Or Out?' Mia's Rogue Oscars Fashion Feedback Listen: A Very Awkward Oscars & That Manosphere Doco Listen: What We Did Before 9am Listen: A Lil' Treat: Jessie’s Very Surprising, Very Wonderful Twins Update Listen: Mia, Female Friendships & The '3-Word Rule' Listen: A Reluctant Pregnancy Announcement On Live TV Listen: Mia's Diary Note: What I Didn't Expect About Being A Nana Connect your subscription to Apple Podcasts Discover more Mamamia Podcasts here including the very latest episode of Parenting Out Loud, the parenting podcast for people who don't listen to... parenting podcasts. SUBSCRIBE here: Support independent women's media Watch Australia's #1 podcast, Mamamia Out Loud: Mamamia Out Loud on YouTube What to read: Mia Freedman steps down from No Filter after 10 years. Kate Langbroek announced as new host. ‘There’s a loneliness that comes from knowing you’re too much.’ What happened when I was diagnosed with ADHD at 49. MIA FREEDMAN: 'The type of burnout I didn't realise I had.' Mia Freedman on starting a media company with her husband. This new series tackles the complicated legacy of the '90s hottest couple. THE END BITS: Check out our merch at MamamiaOutLoud.com GET IN TOUCH: Feedback? We’re listening. Send us an email at outloud@mamamia.com.au Share your story, feedback, or dilemma! Send us a voice message. Join our Facebook group Mamamia Outlouders to talk about the show. Follow us on Instagram @mamamiaoutloud and on Tiktok @mamamiaoutloud Mamamia acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the Land on which we have recorded this podcast.Become a Mamamia subscriber: https://www.mamamia.com.au/subscribeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we complete our series on a pair of empathy games, Papers, Please and Cart Life. We spend some more time with Melanie and her coffee hut before turning to our takeaways, shared between both games. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: Several days of Cart Life Issues covered: the tutorialization in the Melanie story, a whole functioning town, replaying the first few days, real world flexibility, entering a potential failure state, adding parenting into the mix, encountering a bug, reading deeply into the simulation, having a meaningful experience without a systemic backing, supporting the illusion of systems, being forced to have your daughter go to her dad's, bugs and not being sure, losing Andrus's cat, dream sequences, having trouble wanting to play the game, adventure game topics and language, high pressure time, topics in other games, keywords, production economy, words as an inventory, life under capitalism vs authoritarianism, depriving a character of connection, choosing coffee due to life choices, not taking baristas for granted, useful friction and life, min/maxing the simulator vs trying to experiment with it, the horror of retail, opportunities for connection, making the game or life go more quickly, getting OCD with espresso, the physical repetitive tasks, "playing anything," what motivates play and games, being naturally empathetic with the character, choosing an abstract aesthetic, production techniques for lo-fi heart and enabling creativity, being glad that such games exist, tactility of game elements, abstraction and QTEs, Easter eggs.  Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: BioStats, CalamityNolan, Samuel Jackson, Pulp Fiction, Twine, The Walking Dead, David Lynch, Dark Souls, Ultima (series), Her Story, Sam Barlow, Hal Barwood, Return of the Obra Dinn, Mad Libs, howling dogs, WarCraft, Gilmore Girls, The Sims (series), Skyrim, Typing Tutor, Sabrina Carpenter, Receiver, Ian Bogost, Play Anything, Power Washing Simulator, Kim Jung Gi, Sierra, The Last of Us, Cleo 5 to 7, Jeanne Dielman, Chantal Ackerman, David Cage, God of War, Outer Wilds, Passage, Brad, Jason Rohrer, N. K. Jemisin, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.  Next time: BioStats and CalamityNolan's interview with another host Twitch: timlongojr and twinsunscorp Discord  DevGameClub@gmail.com 

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on indie games, by looking at Papers, Please. We talk a bit about Lucas Pope, its creator, and then turn to the game's mechanics and themes. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: One or two playthroughs Issues covered: tactile job simulation games, empathy and commentary, tactility and user interfaces, how it plays, the mechanics post-day, plate-spinning, all the various things you have to check, a nerve-wracking experience, stamping passports, turning the screws, paying vs not paying for things, stereotypical regimes, indie games coming up with new interesting mechanics and AAA borrowing them, justifying denial of entry, having your options limited by bureaucracy, ways that days can end, the timer pressure, dehumanizing the process, describing the board game Train, opportunities for subversion, coins, being recruited for espionage, a precedent for weapon power mechanics. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Shirley Jackson, The Lottery, Cart Life, Persuasive Games, Ian Bogost, Fez, Naughty Dog, Helsing's Fire, Return of the Obra Dinn, Moida Mansion, Playdate, Mars After Midnight, The Lives of Others, Fumito Ueda, Uncharted 2, Balance of Power, Chris Crawford, Seamus McNally, Train, Brenda Romero, Keita Takahashi, Katamari Damacy, To A T, Pidy Retsym/Mystery Dip, Quoggim Logglehoggle, NES, Cave Story, Blaster Master, Daisuke Amaya, Outer Wilds, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.  Next time: Twitch: timlongojr  Discord  DevGameClub@gmail.com  (show notes updated to attempt to force AP to update)

If the Trump administration's actions and rhetoric against universities sound vaguely familiar, that may be because they've already happened elsewhere. Over the years, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has dismantled his country's higher-education system; cracked down on diversity, dissent, and critical thinking; and cast academic institutions as dangerous. So what does that mean for the future of higher ed in America? Further reading: Ian Bogost on “The End of College Life” Anne Applebaum on “America's Future Is Hungary” Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You'll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Subscribe today at TheAtlantic.com/podsub. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our latest season of How To is a collection of our favorite episodes from past seasons—a best-of series focused on slowing down, making space, and finding meaning in our hectic lives. This episode, from our fifth season, How to Keep Time, features co-hosts Ian Bogost and Becca Rashid in conversation with Oliver Burkeman to explore what it can look like to let go in a culture preoccupied with productivity. Write to us at howtopodcast@theatlantic.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This new season of How To is a collection of our favorite episodes from past seasons—a best-of series focused on slowing down, making space, and finding meaning in our hectic lives. This episode, from our fifth season, called How to Keep Time, features host Ian Bogost in conversation with Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, the author of several books on rest and a director at 4 Day Week Global. The two explore how varied understandings of rest can affect our ability to gain real benefits from it. Write to us at howtopodcast@theatlantic.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Two of our discourse besties from UAL's Fashion Media Practice & Criticism -- experiential designers Daniel Felstead and Jenn Leung -- join us to talk Janky Capitalism (the obvious falling-apart weirdness of the world while capital spins off farther and farther away from it, leaving us behind), Roblox, and neural media. You probably know their work from the iconic 'The Metaverse in Janky Capitalism' on Dis and its associated 'Literally No Place' and 'Always on My Mind' -- or from associated speaking / discourse production all over the internet (++ more on Jenn (link) and Daniel (link)).References from the pod include:Ruba Al-Sweel's awesome piece for SQD: 'Sandbox Semiotics' referenced in the intro.Jenn references artworld queen Anna Uddenberg (e.g. 'Continental Breakfast'), Harvard's GSD's Guide to Shopping, and Ian Bogost (whose critique of anthropomorphism in video games we really relate to).Daniel references Sam Cummins from Nymphet Alumni, a favorite podcast that everyone should already know and spend all their time listening to.Daniel references Catherine Malabou's concept of plasticity (throughout her work, typically referencing neuroscientific plasticisty, here used in its more generalized form).The second half of the episode spends some time with the theory of K. Allado-McDowell, specifically the concept of neural media. We could not recommend this episode of our other favorite podcast (New Models) more strongly.Roberto mentions Zachary Horton's 'Cosmic Zoom', which is our obsession atm.Ok enjoyyyy byee!

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for September 28, 2024 is: avatar • AV-uh-tar • noun An avatar is an electronic image (as in a video game) that represents, and can be manipulated by, a computer user. Avatar can also refer to the embodiment of something (such as a concept or philosophy) often in a person, or to an incarnation of a deity—especially a Hindu deity, such as Vishnu. // Before they started playing the game, Maeve and Sanaa customized their avatars. // She has come to be regarded as an avatar of charity and concern for the poor. See the entry > Examples: “‘I am crying,' my editor said when I connected with her via FaceTime on my Apple Vision Pro. ‘You look like a computer man.' What made her choke with laughter was ... the digital avatar that the device had generated when I had pointed its curved, glass front at my face during setup. I couldn't see the me that she saw, but apparently it was uncanny. You look handsome and refined, she told me, but also fake.” — Ian Bogost, The Atlantic, 3 Feb. 2024 Did you know? Water. Earth. Fire. Air. These are just some of the elements and environments that video game avatars—the images representing and controlled by players—have faced since the days of Space Invaders, to say nothing of today's Pandora's box of assorted baddies. Avatar comes from the Sanskrit word avatāraḥ, meaning “descent.” When avatar first appeared in English in the late 18th century, it referred to the descent of a deity to the earth—typically, the incarnation in earthly form of Vishnu or another Hindu deity. It later came to refer to any incarnation in human form, and then to any embodiment (such as the embodiment of a concept or philosophy), whether or not in the form of a person. All of these senses of avatar are still in use today, joined by the more recent computing/gaming sense, which may refer to “you” embodied as a mustachioed Italian plumber, for example, even if you are not, in fact, a mustachioed Italian plumber.

Ian Bogost, contributing writer at The Atlantic and a lover and expert on soft drinks, joins Michael to talk about his piece "J. D. Vance Has a Point About Mountain Dew." Original air date 26 July 2024.

For the holiday, Radio Atlantic is sharing the first episode of the Atlantic podcast How to Keep Time. Co-hosts Becca Rashid and the Atlantic contributing writer Ian Bogost examine our relationship with time and what we can do to reclaim it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Before laptops allowed us to take the office home and smartphones could light up with notifications at any hour, work time and “life” time had clearer boundaries. Today, work is not done exclusively in the workplace, and that makes it harder to leave work at work.  Co-hosts Becca Rashid and Ian Bogost examine the habits that shrink our available time, and Ignacio Sánchez Prado, a professor of Latin American Studies at Washington University in St. Louis, offers his reflections on American culture and shares suggestions for how to use the time we do have, for life.  This episode was co-hosted by Becca Rashid and Ian Bogost. Becca Rashid also produces the show. Editing by Jocelyn Frank and Claudine Ebeid. Fact-check by Ena Alvarado. Engineering by Rob Smierciak. The managing editor of How to Keep Time is Andrea Valdez. Write to us at howtopodcast@theatlantic.com.  Want to share unlimited access to The Atlantic with your loved ones? Give a gift today at theatlantic.com/podgift. For a limited time, select new subscriptions will come with the bold Atlantic tote bag as a free holiday bonus. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

America Dissected comes to you LIVE from Atlanta at the American Public Health Association Annual Meeting. Abdul reflects on the ways that the internet is fundamentally reshaping the way we think about place–and its impact on public health. Then he sits down with Ian Bogost, professor, video game designer, and contributing writer at the Atlantic.

On today's episode of Hear Me Out… lovable underdogs? For a long time, we've been sold — and we've bought — the idea of the nerd hero; usually a man, usually brilliant, and usually a social outcast who, inevitably, gets the girl. That was the happy ending. But now, we're surrounded by powerful, self-styled nerds who have it all and still want more. And, to some, it's increasingly hard to root for these guys. Ian Bogost, a writer and video game designer, joins us.  If you have thoughts you want to share, or an idea for a topic we should tackle, you can email the show: hearmeout@slate.com Podcast production by Maura Currie You can skip all the ads in Hear Me Out by joining Slate Plus. Sign up now at slate.com/hearmeoutplus for just $15 a month for your first three months. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On today's episode of Hear Me Out… lovable underdogs? For a long time, we've been sold — and we've bought — the idea of the nerd hero; usually a man, usually brilliant, and usually a social outcast who, inevitably, gets the girl. That was the happy ending. But now, we're surrounded by powerful, self-styled nerds who have it all and still want more. And, to some, it's increasingly hard to root for these guys. Ian Bogost, a writer and video game designer, joins us.  If you have thoughts you want to share, or an idea for a topic we should tackle, you can email the show: hearmeout@slate.com Podcast production by Maura Currie You can skip all the ads in Hear Me Out by joining Slate Plus. Sign up now at slate.com/hearmeoutplus for just $15 a month for your first three months. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices