Transhumanism Videos
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Authors David B. Coe and Travis Taylor; artist David Mattingly; and convention organizers Uncle Timmy, Brandy Spraker and Derek Spraker are our guests today. Topics: David Mattingly discusses trends in the digital production of commercial art. Travis Taylor talks of the launch vehicle that will replace the soon to be retired Space Shuttle. David B. Coe describes his take on our escalating energy crisis and the bold proposals of T. Boone Pickens. Recorded at the SF The former head of the matte department at Walt Disney Studios, he has worked on the movies The Black Hole, Tron, Dick Tracy, Stephen King's The Stand and most recently I, Robot. David B. Coe is an award winning author of epic fantasy novels, including those of his series Winds of the Forelands, who holds a doctorate in environmental history. Travis Taylor is a research scientist and the author of scientifically accurate science fiction. His novels include Warp Speed, The Quantum Connection, Von Neumann's War, and his latest novel: One Day on Mars. Our other guests include several of LibertyCon's organizers: Uncle Timmy: the con chairman. As well as Brandy Spraker and Derek Spraker both of whom wear many organizational hats.

Harry Turtledove, David B. Coe, and Toni Weisskopf are our featured guests today. Interviewed as a group and recorded before a live audience, they discuss the future of books and the trends they see in publishing. In the process of sharing their vision of the future they also share many personal anecdotes about themselves and about famous authors they have met, including: Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, L. Sprague de Camp, Mike Resnick, Sarah A. Hoyt, Lois McMaster Bujold, Charles Sheffield and Catherine Asaro. Harry Turtledove is an award winning science fiction David B. Coe is an award winning author of epic fantasy novels who holds a Ph.D. in environmental history. (Web, Wiki) Toni Weisskopf is an award winning editor and the head of Baen Books: the world renowned publishing house of SF&F hardbacks, paperbacks and electronic books. Baen Books was founded by Jim Baen, and is the owner of Jim Baenâs Universe Magazine, where your humble host is a columnist and contributing editor. (Web, Wiki) Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the July 16, 2008 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 69 minutes] This interview was recorded on July 12, 2008 at the Science Fiction and Fantasy Convention in Chattanooga TN called LibertyCon.

Mark Forman, who has lived and worked in Taiwan for over twenty years and is host of the podcast Big in Asia, is our featured guest. (His websites: business, personal, podcast.) An eye-witness to the trends which are shaping Asia's rapidly changing future, Mark Forman is an American businessman from Brooklyn New York who studied Chinese language and culture at the University of Arizona and, during the last two decades, has traveled a great deal in China as well as within many of its neighboring countries. In today's interview he describes his personal observations of the changes sweeping the Asian world and especially Greater China. Greater China is a term commonly used in business and economics to indicate not just mainland China, but also the regions that it governs, such as Hong Kong, as well as the regions it does not govern, such as Taiwan. Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the July 9, 2008 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 59 minutes] While the topics covered in this interview range all over Asia, much of the focus is on mainland China and its relationship to other countries. This is because of all the countries in Asia, China has the biggest influence on the rest of the world and yet (since the Bamboo Curtain is only now beginning to fall) for most Westerners it is the least understood. Topics discussed include: the transformation of China from an anti-business communist economy to a pro-business free-market economy; the rise of Chinese consumerism; how internet access (including Google and Wikipedia) are eroding Chinese government censorship and forcing a new openness; the possibility of democracy taking root in China, and how a non-western democracy might be defined; the 2008 Olympics in Beijing; and of course much, much more.

Kevin J. Anderson, the best selling science fiction and fantasy author, is our guest today. (His website.) Co-author of the Dune prequels, his original works include the Saga of Seven Suns series and the Nebula Award-nominated Assemblers of Infinity. A prolific science fiction author, he has had at least 32 of his novels on the various best seller lists including the famous New York Times Bestseller's list. His books have been translated into at least twenty-four languages, and have sold over 16 million copies worldwide. He has written spin-off novels for Star Wars, StarCraft, Titan A.E., and The X-Files. In addition to all this, he has served as a judge in the Writers of the Future contest. Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the July 2, 2008 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 56 minutes] In today's interview Kevin J. Anderson describes his ideas and observations on a variety of topics such as the current global energy crisis, peak oil theory, solar and nuclear power, and his new purchase of a fuel efficient car. Having returned from a month long promotional tour of Australia and New Zealand, he describes his surprise at how different public opinion about Global Warming is down there compared to in the US. There is an overwhelming acceptance of the concept, and crowds greet Al Gore with the admiration and enthusiasm usually reserved for rock stars. He is not comfortable that we will soon retire the space shuttle with nothing to replace it. Even now, he points out, we have to ask the Russians to take our astronauts up to the international space station for us. He also ponders some serious questions: If the Middle Eastern dictators thumb their noses at China, the Chinese government--which unlike the USA does not set limits on how it treats its own people much less outsiders--may very well invade the oil rich countries and take their oil by force. And if future nanotechnology allows everyone to have everything they want what kind of civilization will we have? Will people still work? Will most crime go away? What in our lives will remain the same?

Catherine Asaro, physicist and Nebula award winning author, is our featured guest. (Her website) She discuses nanotech, biotech, artificial intelligence and the singularity. She also describes her expectations concerning aging and longevity, oil and alternative energy; and she agrees to let the host arrange for her to do a personal appearance inside Second Life. She mentions that she has begun composing music on the computer, says a few words about her new novel (The Night Bird) and briefly lets slip that she will be consulting with a game developer (which she could not name) to help them with aspects of the new game they are designing. When asked questions which form the core beliefs of The Order of Cosmic Engineers (web) (a new international organization of which your host is a founding member) she displays a remarkable level of agreement. As a tutor to gifted children she sees how the world view of children today is radically different than those held by children just twenty or thirty years ago. Their vision of the world has been transformed by the Internet and cell phones into something far more global and far less tied to ones specific locality. Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the June 25, 2008 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 66 minutes] Catherine Asaro is the author of 17 novels which have been described as a blend of hard science fiction, romance and space adventure. 11 of her novels belong to her Saga of the Skolian Empire. Her novel The Quantum Rose won the Nebula Award for best novel of 2001 and she is a three-time winner of the Romantic Times Book Club award for Best Science Fiction Novel. From UCLA she received a Bachelors Degree in Chemistry. From Harvard she received a Masters in Physics and a Ph.D. in Chemical Physics. She has done research at the University of Toronto in Canada, the Max Planck Institut fÃr Astrophysik in Germany, and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Her research involved using quantum theory to describe the behavior of atoms and molecules. She was a physics professor until 1990, when she established Molecudyne Research. A former ballerina, she has performed with ballets and in musicals on both the east and west coast of the United States. In the 1980âs she was a principal dancer and artistic director of the Mainly Jazz Dancers and the Harvard University Ballet. She has also published short stories, reviews, essays, and scientific papers in refereed academic journals. Her paper Complex Speeds and Special Relativity, which appeared in the April 1996 issue of The American Journal of Physics, forms the basis for some of the science in her novels.

Authors Robert V. Aldrich, Michael D'Ambrosio and Steve Cross are our featured guests today. Recorded on location at ConCarolinas (web): the science fiction and fantasy convention held a few weeks ago in Charlotte NC. Robert V. Aldrich (web) (author of the anime-style novels Crossworld and Queendom) describes trends in anime, manga, illegal downloading as well as the movies Speed Racer and Ironman. Michael D'Ambrosio (web) (author of the Fractured Time trilogy) has been expanding his career into screenwriting and so describes the trends he sees in that difficult and highly competitive field, as well as in movie deals and promotion. Steve Cross (web) briefly describes his first novel: Discarded Faces. Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the June 18, 2008 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 41 minutes] Also mentioned in this episode is the news that the host is one of the founders of a new international organization called The Order of Cosmic Engineers. (The Order's Prospectus)

Professor Amy H. Sturgis is our featured guest. She talks about many of the trends she sees in colleges in general, and the increasing scholarly studies of science fiction and fantasy literature and media in particular. She also mentions her work for StarShipSofa, the enthusiasm students have for classes on speculative fiction, and how these studies augment their study of history. Amy H. Sturgis earned her Ph.D. in Intellectual History from Vanderbilt University, and she teaches Interdisciplinary Studies at Belmont University. In the field of science fiction/fantasy studies, she has multiple books, book chapters, and articles to her credit on subjects such as J.R.R. Tolkien, H.P. Lovecraft, Harry Potter, Star Trek, Gothic literature, and Arthurian legends, among others. She is a regular speaker at universities and conventions across the U.S. and Canada, and she is often interviewed by national radio programs, television shows, and newspapers as a genre expert. In 2006, she was honored with the Imperishable Flame Award for Achievement in Tolkien/Inklings Scholarship. Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the June 11, 2008 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 36 minutes]

Gary Jones (from the TV show Stargate SG-1) is joined by the authors Mike Resnick and David B. Coe, and the editor of Orson Scott Card's online magazine, Edmund R. Schubert. Recorded at the science fiction and fantasy convention ConCarolinas in Charlotte NC, this episode is dedicated to ConCarolinas. ConCarolinas is very special to your host for several reasons. Six years ago, it became the first con he ever attended as part of the entertainment; for the last five years they have hosted an annual tournament for a game he invented (Death Stacks); and because they have always treated him as though he was part of their family. Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the June 4, 2008 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 70 minutes] Other guests in this episode include: Gail Martin (fantasy author and video podcaster); Mike Pederson (editor of Nth Degree Magazine and founder of RavenCon); Podcasting's Rich Sigfrit (voice actor and producer of many podcasts); Davey Beauchamps (writer and anthologist); Neury Steinhour (host of Artist Ally Podcast); Warren Buff (StellarCon's new chairman); Tom Barisford (spokesperson for a writers group called Charlotte Writer's Night Out); Chris Hensley (a self-described low-level flacky); As well as Tera Fulbright, Glen Beattie and a variety of anonymous fans. Topics covered include trends in books, comics, writing, podcasts, standup comedy, TV shows, as well as anecdotes about the late Jim Baen and Kelly Lockhart, and just exactly who kissed who to raise $100 during the charity auction.

Two Radio DJs, each from a different part of the country and having traveled a different career path, describe the trends which are forcing commercial radio to change from what it once was into what it is yet to become. Kelly Lockhart (website) started his DJ career in Key Largo Florida, when fresh out of the military and has worked at radio stations in Atlanta, Tallahassee and Chattanooga. He is a feature writer for The Chattanooga Pulse newspaper, is an award-winning advertising copywriter, is the lead guitarist for the popular 70âs style rock band Moccasin Bend, and for two decades worked in radio and television both on the air and behind the scenes. Shannon Presley (website) is currently an on-air personality and webmaster for the #1 radio station in south central Kentucky: The Beaver--WBVR. She is also a member of the Society for Creative Anachronism, is a Board Member for the Glasgow Highland Games, and helps with 18th century events at Mansker's Station. Kelly talks about the downside of voice tracking and worries that traditional radio is dying. Satellite radio, he says, will have its day in the sun but podcasting will replace them both. This final dominance of podcasting will come when podcasts become commonly available in cars, because the drive time commute is the key. He does emphasize that radio can save itself if it does the right thing. This is the thing that Oprah and Howard Stern both do. Shannon is less worried about radio's future. She does not see satellite radio as a threat to ground-based radio because ground-based is local and gives listeners a local connection to things like bad weather. She also describes the good side of voice tracking; and even insists that people do like to hear some local commercials because that lets them know about concerts and special events, as well as sales and bargains. Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the May 28, 2008 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 68 minutes] Shannon also talks about topics unrelated to radio such as: digital photography, PDAs, historical research for reenactments of frontier life, shopping on eBay, advancements in the medical field such as diabetes, identity theft, the government overstepping people's rights, and recalls when owning a VIC-20 computer made you Hot Snot.

Five professional artists discuss the trends in the popular arts, including comics, Muppets, childrenâs book illustrations, commercial art and movie animation (both hand-drawn and CGI) and much, much more. Each artist shares anecdotes from their experiences and describes the trends they see within their specific field. They five artists are: Cheralyn Lambeth, who worked on the Muppet costumes for Sesame Street Live! worked with Jim Henson Productions on the TV series Dinosaur! and the film The Muppet Christmas Carol, and also worked as a prop maker for Paramount Production Services. (IMDb) Steve Bennett, a manga artist with three webcomics online and a career history that stretches back to working in an anime production studio in Japan as a teenager. (webpage) Richard H. Green, who worked at Walt Disney Studios on: Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Beauty and the Beast, and Rescuers Down Under. Scott Stewart who has been the principal artist for many projects including childrenâs books, comic books and coloring books which are marketing tie-ins to famous properties including Spiderman, Superman and The X-men. (webpage) S.L. Gallant, who has done a number of comic book tie-ins for movies from DreamWorks such as Madagascar, has done cartoon ads for Kraft Foods such as the Cool Aid Man and Cheesaurus Rex, and has also worked for Dark Horse Comics. (webpage) Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the May 21, 2008 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 84 minutes]

In #323 I welcome back a previous G Day World guest, one of my favourite scientists, Dr Aubrey de Grey. Aubrey is the founder of The Methuselah Foundation, a non-profit 501c(3) organization committed to the acceleration of progress toward a cure for age-related disease, disability, suffering, and death. They are running a special conference on aging at UCLA from June 27 - 29 and the Friday night session, with three hours of speeches from leaders in the field, is FREE. Book tickets here. If you want to learn more about SENS, here s a link to the show I did with Aubrey back in August 2005: G Day World #42 - Aubrey de Grey The music on today s show is 1,000,000 from the new Nine Inch Nails album THE SLIP , which is licensed under a creative commons attribution non-commercial share alike license. NIN encourage you to remix it share it with your friends, post it on your blog, play it on your podcast, give it to strangers, etc.. ROCK ON TRENT REZNOR!

Author: w0rldpeace Added: Fri, 16 May 2008 00:19:32 -0800 Duration: 72Went to see Ray speak tonight at MIT. It was highly enjoyable. Matt from DIYBio Boston was there, as well as Grant from the Boston Transhumanist Group, John Cumbers from Brown University also attended. It was good to see a strong DIY Bio presence at ...

Author: w0rldpeace Added: Fri, 16 May 2008 00:19:32 -0800 Duration: 72Went to see Ray speak tonight at MIT. It was highly enjoyable. Matt from DIYBio Boston was there, as well as Grant from the Boston Transhumanist Group, John Cumbers from Brown University also attended. It was good to see a strong DIY Bio presence at ...

Went to see Ray speak tonight at MIT. It was highly enjoyable. Matt from DIYBio Boston was there, as well as Grant from the Boston Transhumanist Group, John Cumbers from Brown University also attended. It was good to see a strong DIY Bio presence at the lecture. http://www.theflowingofthedao.com/wordpress/2008/05/15/kurzweil-the-broad-institute-mit/

Paul Fischer, Information Technology professional and one of podcastingâs pioneers, is our guest today. The team of Paul Fischer and Martha Holloway are widely known for their Balticon Podcast and A.D.D. Podcast. In this interview Paul describes: How cellular phone companies manage to charge $3 for only part of a song when the entire song can be bought on Amazon.com for under a dollar. And why this eight billion dollar ringtone business in the US is even worse in Europe where ringtones cost individual users about $30 per year, every year, because they are rented. How the F.C.C. has failed the American public in their assigned mission, and why they do not care that they have failed. Ways the American cell phone companies have perverted the rules that are supposed to govern their operations. The sad fact that Police and Fire Department cellular systems all take a back seat to commercial cellular systems in terms of quality, bandwidth, priority and deployment. And which cities are taking serious steps to fix this problem. Why the Japanese all have better cell phone service and bandwidth than Americans, so much so that watching live streaming internet TV on their cell phones has lost its novelty. Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the May 14, 2008 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 58 minutes] Paul Fischer also talks about his involvement with Balticon, and how this led him and Martha Holloway to create the Balticon Podcast. He mentions that Neil Gaiman was one of his favorite guests, and describes Neil Gaiman as a joy to interview, a genuinely nice guy, as well as a modern renaissance man who seems to do everything well. Paul also talks about his interviews with others including the brilliant artist Joe Bergeron.

Transhuman or Human, Will our nature really change? from Ziv Kitaro on Vimeo. A lecture given on the 7th Seminar of the Transhumanist / Life-extensionist club in Israel. Cast: Ziv Kitaro

Katherine Kurtz, the best selling author of many fantasy novels including those in her Deryni Series, is our featured guest, in an interview recorded at the science fiction and fantasy convention, RavenCon in Richmond Virginia. In this interview Katherine Kurtz talks about: her writing methods and style; which of her books were the most difficult to write and which ones were the most fun, and shares anecdotes from her travels, her life and her work. A friend of Anne McCaffery, Katherine has lived for a number of years in Ireland but recently moved back to the United States â the nation of her birth. Concerning the future: Katherine describes trends within publishing today and the future of electronic publishing, and how our lives are being changed by cell phones, IM, high speed internet and online catalogs. She also discusses the annoyance of popup ads and junk-mail, her opinion of Wikipedia, and the seduction of the internet as a time-vampire. She also predicts that physical mail (as opposed to email) will someday become rare. Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the May 7, 2008 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 48 minutes] News items in this episode include: 1) Sophrosyne Stenvaag announces that Extropia Core (the futuristic city-state within Second Life which your host visits frequently) will Co-Host part of the NASA Future Forum next week on May 14, 2008, which will feature a preview of NASAâs Constellation Program â Americaâs return to the Moon and beyond. The keynote address which will be broadcast live on NASA TV will be given by NASA Deputy Administrator Shana Dale, who is known inside Second Life as Xena Dahl. Soph explains how listeners can attend and participate. 2) Your host also thanks Zada Zenovka for her kind gift of a new pair of designer eyes for his avatar within Second Life. Zada is one of the two artists who crafted the custom made body and skin for the author David Brin when he made a personal appearance inside Second Life a few weeks ago as part of Extropia's celebration of Yuri's Night.

Authors C.J. Henderson, Allen Wold and Michael Ventrella are joined by Thomas cmdln Gideon (digital media activist and host of The Command Line podcast), The Wombat (RavenCon's Fan Guest of Honor back in 2007), as well as Bill Mann, Tera Fulbright and many others in this special episode recorded on location at the science fiction and fantasy convention in Richmond Virginia called RavenCon. Also included is an exclusive interview with one of the inside experts on a new massively multiplayer online real-time strategy game called Beyond Protocol which is currently in beta test. Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the April 30, 2008 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 77 minutes] C.J. Henderson is the award-winning author of fifty novels including the Teddy London supernatural detective series. Allen Wold is the author of nine novels and five nonfiction books. And while Michael Ventrella has just released his first novel, he is best known as one of the founders of Animato Magazine and of the LARP NERO.

David Brin, fresh from a personal appearance inside the virtual world of Second Life, is our featured guest. The best selling science fiction author, scientist and public speaker, expands on the ideas he presented there and describes his impression of that virtual world based on his first-hand experience. David Brin has won multiple Hugo and Nebula awards and is the author of the novel Kiln People and The Life Eaters as well as six novels within his Uplift Series. He holds a Bachelorâs in astronomy, a Masterâs in applied physics, and a Doctorate in astrophysics. Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the April 23, 2008 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 49 minutes] David Brin's appearance inside Second Life was part of the annual world-wide celebration of Yuri's Night, which commemorates the first human flight into space by Yuri Gagarin in 1961. For nearly two hours David Brin spoke to an overflow crowd in the grand meeting hall in the Central Nexus Building inside the city-state of Extropia inside Second Life. He was interviewed by Sophrosyne Stenvaag in an expanded version of her Sophrosyne's Saturday Salon which is held every week. Wearing a photorealistic body specially crafted for this event by the avatar artists Zeroe Auer and Zada Zenovka, David spoke about the strengths and weaknesses of virtual worlds as a place to discuss ideas--and did so while experiencing those very strengths and weaknesses as he discussed ideas. (My photos of his event may be found on Flickr.) The city-state of Extropia has become a popular meeting area within Second Life for those who are curious about the future because it features weekly events to discuss various futuristic topics. The organization SL-Transhumanists, for example, hosts lectures and discussions about the many aspects of transhumanism such as nanotech, genotech, AI and the Singularity.

Randal L. Schwartz, the widely known computer programmer and programming consultant, is our featured guest today. Randal has acquired a level of renown through his longstanding work in popularizing and promoting the programming language called Perl. He has authored and co-authored many widely used books on the subject, and has written over 200 articles about it for various computer magazines. He is also the co-host of FLOSS Weekly (a podcast from the TWiT podcasting Network which features prominent guests from the free software/open source community). In todayâs interview Randal discusses the following topics: How ethanol is not only raising food prices world-wide but its production is also a major source of carbon dioxide (a concern for Global Warming), some have suggested that switch grass may be a better answer. Google's announced desire to offer free nation-wide wireless internet access; and the legal catch-22 that municipalities have always found themselves in when they tried to provide wi-fi at the taxpayer's expense. How passports with RFID chips can be hacked wirelessly as you walk through an airport; why it is that Japanese users are getting 25 times faster high-speed internet than American high-speed users; and how Netflix.com is scrambling to keep Hulu.com from outpacing them. Randal also describes his involvement with Geek Cruises and the Scientific American Cruises; his podcast FLOSS Weekly (which stands for Free Libre Open Source Software and may be found at twit.tv/floss); and his enthusiasm over a powerful new programming language called SeaSide. (Examples, BTW, of open source software include: Wikipedia, Blender, Gimp and Open Office.) Randal also gets to gloat over his prediction from last year because the New York Times has reported that pacemaker heart implants with wi-fi internet connections can be hacked through the internet by a hacker on the other side of the world, who can make the device stop working or even give the patient electric shocks strong enough to kill. Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the April 16, 2008 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 69 minutes] Randal L. Schwartz is a founding board member of the Perl Mongers, the worldwide Perl grassroots advocacy organization and, since 1985, has owned and operated Stonehenge Consulting Services which specializes in the teaching, training and programming of Perl. Also included in this episode is your host's eyewitness report on the Yuri's Night celebration that took place on April 12 in the city state of Extropia inside Second Life. David Brin (the award-winning and best-selling author) was the featured speaker. David was easily recognizable since his avatar wore a photorealistic skin created for the occasion by a skilled avatar artist. During the all-day festivities in Extropia your host: met two NASA representatives as well as some Russians, drove a moon buggy; sat inside a life-sized model of Yuri Gagarin's space capsule, danced with a wide variety of beautiful women, admired Vidal Tripsa's space suit (possibly the sexiest space suit ever), watched David Brin pack the house for his open forum discussion about the strengths and weaknesses of virtual worlds such as Second Life, and took over 300 photos of the day's events. (Many of which can be viewed on Flickr.)

Greg Bear, the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author of more than thirty books of science fiction and fantasy, is our featured guest today. Greg Bear has served on political and scientific action committees and has advised Microsoft Corporation, the U.S. Army, the CIA, Sandia National Laboratories, and Homeland Security. And just recently--like your host--he has joined the advisory board of the Lifeboat Foundation. In today's interview Greg Bear describes his TV appearance on The Daily Show with John Steward, movie deals which are in the works for his novels, and his recollections of his many conversations with the late Sir Arthur C. Clarke, including the very first time he met Sir Arthur back in 1968 when Greg was only 16 years old. He also talks of nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, technological immortality, mind uploading, and why he disagrees with some of the expectations of Transhumanists, and most of the expectations of Singularitarians. Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the April 9, 2008 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 62 minutes] Greg also discusses physics and string theory; life on extrasolar planets (including the surprisingly numerous super-hot planets which often orbit their stars in a matter of days); the world wide annual celebration of Yuri Gagarin's first human flight into space (which your host will be celebrating inside Second Life); Sir Arthur C. Clarke's many contributions to civilization; how technology will change future battlefields; and how Russia seems to be heading back into the cold war. He also reveals his excitement that The Science Fiction Museum in Seattle will be expanding to include fantasy, and possibly horror as well. He was on the advisory board for the science fiction museum in Seattle along with Ray Bradbury, Octavia Butler and Sir Arthur C. Clarke. Greg Bear's novel, Quantico, is a near-future thriller; while Darwinâs Radio and Darwinâs Children form a sequence about viruses and human evolution. Blood Music deals with biotechnology, nanotechnology (including grey goo), the nature of consciousness and artificial intelligence. News items mentioned in this episode include: Robert J. Sawyer the award-winning author made two personal appearances inside Second Life on Sunday, April 6, 2008. The first in the Central Nexus building in Extropia Core, the second at a meeting of the Extropia Book Club. David Brin the award-winning author will be making a personal appearance inside Second Life on Saturday, April 12 in Extropia Core as part of the annual world-wide Yuri's Night celebrations of the first human in space. He will be the Spotlight Guest at Sophrosyne's Saturday Salon. Soph will interview David in an open discussion event from 1 PM to 2:30 PM Pacific Time. I am the Very Model of a Singularitarian is a clever music video now on youTube. Written and sung by Charlie Kam to the tune of Gilbert and Sullivan's I am the Very Model of a Modern Major General from the popular musical play The Pirates of Penzance. www.WikiPatents.com is a public community which features a wiki-like interface for reviewing, rating, and discussing US patents and pending patent applications. It also offers free patent PDF downloads, file histories, and advanced patent searching. Users may also vote on the marketability and technical merits of patents and patent applications.

Dr. Gregory L. Matloff, astronomer and author of six popular books on astronomy and astronautics, is our featured guest. His latest book, Living Off the Land in Space, was co-authored with NASAâs Les Johnson and Brooklyn artist C Bangs. Future and current trends in spaceflight and propulsion are covered in this interview, as well as all the following topics: where the big money will be made in space; space-based solutions to our energy problems on earth today; the inflatable space habitats and hotels that Robert Bigalow has started building; practical methods of asteroid mining and diverting; ion drives and solar sails; the likelihood of a new international space race; exoplanets in general but especially the new developing possibility of earth-like planets orbiting the nearest star, Alpha Centauri. Doctor Matloff also talks about the late Sir Arthur C. Clarke's book Rendezvous with Rama which opens with an asteroid impact wiping a quarter of Europe's cities and population off the map; new estimates of the Tunguska impact of 1908; as well as one particular earth-grazing asteroid which will be taking two pot-shots at humanity during the next two decades. Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the April 2, 2008 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 71 minutes] Doctor Matloff makes it clear that the future of spaceflight is Not likely to look like the spaceflight of the past. Nor is it likely to resemble the spaceflight generally described in science fiction. One of his early books, The Starflight Handbook: A Pioneer's Guide to Interstellar Travel, was co-authored with MIT science writer Eugene F. Mallove. Doctor Matloff has consulted for NASA on in-space propulsion systems and methods of protecting Earth from threatening objects. And he has also contributed to the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), atmospheric modeling, space astronomy and navigation, and studies to produce energy from the wind. News Items described in this episode include: Robert J. Sawyer (bestselling author and former guest on this show) will be making a personal appearance inside Second Life. He will discuss the future of: AI, robotics, life extension, SETI, and more. Afterward, he will join the Extropia Book Club for their discussion of his latest novel, Rollback, which is now a finalist for the Hugo Award. The event will be held on April 6, 2008 at high noon (Pacific Time) in the Central Nexus building in Extropia Core inside Second Life. The New York Times has reported that pacemakers are now vulnerable to hacker attacks because device makers have begun designing them to connect to the Internet wirelessly. Google wants to offer nationwide Wi-Fi to everyone in America for Free. (This is not an April Fools joke.) On March 21, 2008 Google submitted a six-page letter to the FCC outlining processes and tests to avoid interference if they are granted use of a portion of those radio frequencies which will become available in 2009 when television ceases to broadcast analog transmissions.

Kim Stanley Robinson, the best selling and award-winning science fiction author is our featured guest. Probably best known for his Mars trilogy (Red Mars, Green Mars and Blue Mars); his other novels include: Fifty Degrees Below, Forty Signs of Rain, The Years of Rice and Salt, and most recently, Sixty Days and Counting. Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the March 26, 2008 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 83 minutes] In todayâs interview Kim Stanley Robinson covers many topics: his conversations with Sir Arthur C Clarke; how the TV show 24 encourages and justifies the use of torture; his observation that terrorists have become an exaggerated enemy; why English has become the world language; the vision he has tried to put forth in his latest novel Sixty Days and Counting; how frustrating it is that there are lots of exoplanets but we can't go look at them; and his worry that people are losing interest in space exploration because our ability to travel has not extended to the stars and is limited to our own solar system. He also speaks to the difficult issues of the deeper future including: his opinion of the Singularity; his expectations of Artificial Intelligence; why he has moderated some of his views about Nanotechnology (he used to be more dismissive); and just how long he thinks human longevity might become stretched. He also responds to the host's questions: What would people do differently if we all knew we were going to live for 300 years? How would this change civilization? Kim Stanley Robinson's writings have won the Hugo, the Nebula, the Asimov, the John W. Campbell, the Locus, and the World Fantasy Awards. He has a Bachelors degree in literature, a Masters in English, and a Ph.D. also in English. He considers science fiction to be one of the most powerful of all literary forms, which explains why his doctoral thesis was titled The Novels of Philip K. Dick. Other items in this episode include: the recent death of Sir Arthur C. Clarke (one of the hosts personal heroes); how the upcoming Yuri's Night celebrations will take place in two worlds instead of one (the anniversary of the first human in space); LED light bulbs; and an essay concerning the host's new theory about the origin of NGC-6543, also known as the Cat's Eye Nebula.

Peter Norvig, Director of Research at Google (yes, THE Google) is our featured guest today. Peter is co-author of Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach, the leading textbook in the field of AI. He has written more than fifty publications in the computer sciences - concentrating on Artificial Intelligence, Natural Language Processing, and Software Engineering. He is a Fellow of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence and the Association for Computing Machinery. And he was the head of the Computational Sciences Division at NASA Ames Research Center, making him NASA's senior computer scientist. Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the March 19, 2008 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 97 minutes] Will machines someday think as well as humans? Will they think in the same way we do? Will they plan, be creative, invent things that are new and innovative? Will they feel emotions as we do? Will they feel compassion, fear, fondness, attachments based on familiarity? Peter Norvig answers all of these questions, as well as the obligatory scary question: If the IQ curve of AI rises long enough for their IQ to match our own, why would that curve stop rising? Won't their IQ continue increasing until they are ten times smarter than us, and then a hundred, and then a thousand? At what point might this stop? Is there a limit? Do you fear superhuman AI? Should anyone? He also describes his work at NASA concerning the Remote Agent and Mars Exploration Rovers, and what role AI played in it. He talks of the work Google is doing in AI, why Google is interested in AI, and if Google plans to have its search page converse with users.

David B. Coe the award-winning, and critically acclaimed, author of nine fantasy novels (some of which have been translated into no less than six languages, including Russian, German, Dutch, and French) is our featured guest today. David has a doctorate in American history from Stanford University, and he enjoys nature photography, bird and butterfly watching, and playing guitar. David talks about Wikipedia, e-books and Amazon's Kindle, Green investment funds, solar power, his belief that clean coal is decades away, and he once again emphasizes that if his fellow environmentalists are going to get serious about global warming they will have to