The Future And You

Dr. Ben Davis (nuclear physicist and professor), Jim Craig (planetarium director), James Maxey (author), and Stephen Euin Cobb (your host) are today's featured guests.

Topic: Trends in higher education in the USA, with an emphasis on what is going right and what is going wrong.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the June 20, 2012 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 55 minutes] This is a panel discussion recorded before a live audience on June 2, 2012, at the science fiction and fantasy convention, ConCarolinas.

Dr. Ben Davis earned his PhD in Nuclear Physics from the University of Notre Dame. For several years he then taught mathematics, programming, astronomy and physics. He now works in the biometrics industry. His personal interest include: futurism, skepticism, science fiction, and history.

Jim Craig is the director of the James H. Lynn Planetarium at the Schiele Museum in Gastonia NC. He is a lifelong science fiction fan and has given presentations on the history of science fiction. He is an outspoken activist for science education, critical thinking, skepticism and free thought. In 2006 he was allowed to name a crater on Mars.

James Maxey is the author of the superhero novelsNobody Gets the Girl and Burn Baby Burn; as well as the Dragon Age trilogy:Bitterwood, Dragonforge, and Dragonseed. His multi-book epic, Dragon Apocalypse, is an enthusiastic blend of the superhero and fantasy genres. Its titles include Greatshadow (2012), Hush (2012) andWitchbreaker (2013).

Stephen Euin Cobb is an author, futurist, magazine writer and host of the award-winning podcast The Future And You. A contributing editor for Space and Time Magazine; he is also a regular contributor for Robot, H+, Grim Couture and Port Iris magazines; and he spent three years as a columnist and contributing editor for Jim Baen's Universe Magazine. He is an artist, essayist, game designer, transhumanist, and is on the Advisory Board of The Lifeboat Foundation. His novels include Bones Burnt Black, Plague at Redhook and Skinbrain.

James Maxey (author), Edmund R. Schubert (editor and author), and David B. Coe (author) are today's featured guests.

Topic: The upheaval in the traditional book publishing Industry as described by three people who rely on it to pay their bills.

James Maxey is the author of the superhero novels Nobody Gets the Girl and Burn Baby Burn; as well as the Dragon Age trilogy: Bitterwood, Dragonforge, and Dragonseed. His multi-book epic, Dragon Apocalypse, is an enthusiastic blend of the superhero and fantasy genres. Its titles include Greatshadow (2012), Hush (2012) and Witchbreaker (2013).

Edmund R. Schubert is editor-in-chief of Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show (the poplar online magazine of science fiction and fantasy). A fiction author himself, he has written over 35 short stories and one novel: Dreaming Creek.

David B. Coe is the award-winning, and critically acclaimed, author of twelve novels (some of which have been translated into no less than six languages, including Russian, German, Dutch, and French). David has a doctorate in American history from Stanford University, and he enjoys nature photography, bird and butterfly watching, and playing guitar. His latest novel, Thieftaker, is scheduled for release on July 3, 2012 under the pseudonym D.B. Jackson.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the June 13, 2012 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 37 minutes] These three interviews were recorded on June 2, 2012, at the Hilton Hotel in Charlotte NC during the SF&F convention ConCarolinas.

Jonah Knight (singer, songwriter, performer); Jaysen Buterin (independent film maker); three popular authors: James Maxey, David Drake and Janine Spendlove; half of the Mon Frere Comedy Troupe (specifically Bob Bashir, Tom McCoy and Matt Shawn); and my favorite Klingon, Commander Keela Septaric, are today's featured guests.

Composed of seven interviews I gathered in the hallways of the Hilton Hotel in Charlotte NC, this episode is dedicated to the SF&F convention ConCarolinas. I spoke on a number of science and technology panels again this year, and I will be including some of those fascinating discussions in future episodes, but this episode is intended to give you a little of the feel and flavour of the convention. Naturally my obsession with the trends which are creating our future manifests itself in today's episode. The first two interviews contain the bulk of today's trends. The remaining five are included because they are interesting and fun.

The first interview is twelve minutes with the singer/songwriter/performer Jonah Knight who talks about how the upheaval in the music industry over the last decade or more has played itself out, and what authors can learn from it since their industry (publishing) is now in a very similar upheaval. The second interview is ten minutes with the independent film maker Jaysen Buterin about the equally technology-driven upheaval going on in the independent film industry. This is followed by three interviews of about three minutes each with popular authors: James Maxey, David Drake, and Janine Spendlove. Then five minutes with half of the Mon Frere Comedy Troupe (specifically Bob Bashir, Tom McCoy, and Matt Shawn). And to close, I am told what my last name means in Klingon by my favorite Klingon -- Keela Septaric who runs the Klingon Karaoke every year at ConCarolinas. (BTW: Klingon Karaoke does not involve singing in Klingon. It's just a snappier sounding name.)

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the June 6, 2012 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 54 minutes]

ConCarolinas is a general multi-genre multi-media convention which is held every year in Charlotte NC. It's called a sci-fi convention, but in truth it covers all speculative fiction -- science fiction, fantasy and horror. It hosts a variety of fandom related events and guests, including gaming, discussion panels, costume events, music events like Klingon Karaoke, charity auction, SCA events, fan groups like the 501st Stormtroopers, Starfleet, and Klingon Assault Group, and something different every year.

Stephen Euin Cobb is today's featured speaker.

Main Topic: A detailed description of a new form of Internet spam so cleverly disguised that you have probably read lots of it without even noticing. It's called Spintax (a contraction of the words spin and syntax).

Secondary Topics: A sampling of Forecasts for the next 25 years from the World Future Society; Nine Ways to Bias Open-Source Artificial General Intelligence Toward Friendliness (a new peer-review article by Ben Goertzel and Joel Pitt of Novamente); how to use Speakeasy Speedtest (a free website) to make sure you are getting all the Internet speed for which you are paying; the most popular free downloads at C/Net.com; a mention that your host recently switched from DSL (at 6.0 mbps) to cable modem (at 20.0 mbps).

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the May 30, 2012 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 34 minutes]

Stephen Euin Cobb is an author, futurist, magazine writer and host of the award-winning podcast The Future And You. A contributing editor for Space and Time Magazine; he is also a regular contributor for Robot, H+, Grim Couture and Port Iris magazines; and he spent three years as a columnist and contributing editor for Jim Baen's Universe Magazine. He is an artist, essayist, game designer, transhumanist, and is on the Advisory Board of The Lifeboat Foundation. His novels include Bones Burnt Black, Plague at Redhook and Skinbrain.

Note: A listener named Rainer sent links to three lectures which are videos on YouTube. I watched the first one: a one hour lecture about the paleolithic diet by a medical biochemist. It was excellent: full of well-researched science. All three videos make a case for the paleolithic diet. Here are the second and third videos.

Announcement: For a limited time, one of my novels is on sale. The Kindle edition of Skinbrain (Cerebrodermus Fantastica), my most recent and most futuristic novel, has been reduced to just $2.99. That's right, under three bucks for what I consider my best novel.

Skinbrain description from Amazon.com: On an earth-like planet far from Earth the remains of a long dead alien civilization have been found, but this news has not reached the authorities—nor will it. Fourteen murderers—a mixed bag of human and alien criminals—have seen to that by killing the team of forty scientists who discovered the remains. These professional criminals combine their talents to search through the rubble for a hypothetical alien super-weapon. One under-age street-tough thinks she's got what it takes to rub shoulders and bump heads with the worst of them but soon realizes she’s in way over her head. Worse, as conflicts struggle to tear it apart, she learns just how unstable a team of criminals can be. Call it anything you like: treachery, betrayal, or just reducing the number with whom one must share the final spoils. Here, as in all of life, cowards and the dead reap nothing.

If you like science fiction, especially science fiction which involves strange alien worlds, strange alien species, strange alien cultures, and strange alien criminals. Check it out. If you enjoy reading Skinbrain a hundredth as much as I enjoyed writing it, you are in for wonderful experience.

Stephen Euin Cobb is today's featured speaker.

Topics: Erotic novels are getting a sales boost from ebooks such as the Kindle and the Nook; Google's anticipated eyeglass computers; many (and possibly most) human beings are chimeras; the next big boom-time for programmers who write apps; how science fiction's vision of the future changes based on the decade in which it is written; sequencing each patient's personal exome; and the steadily falling price of sequencing a patient's personal genome. I also mention interviewing Ari Kiirikki (then Vice President of Knome Inc. The world's leading provider of personal DNA sequencing) several years ago at the Singularity Summit in New York City.

Mini Speculative Essay: The news article I read into this episode about Human Chimeras specifies that expectant mothers get a dose of stem cells from their fetus, and that these stem cells travel through the mother's body and become a permanent part of her various tissues, including the brain. It just struck me that this may be part of why women have a statistically longer lifespan than men, who of course never get this or any bonus dose of fresh cells during their adulthood. The obvious test of this as a correlation would be to compare the longevity of a population of women who had no pregnancies, verses those who had many pregnancies. It should also be mentioned that births in this case may not be relevant. Pregnancy alone, even if only temporary, may be sufficient to dose a woman with fresh stem cells. It should also be mentioned that, the amount of stem cells received by the mother may be trivial to her longevity, that this amount my vary widely from mother to mother, or even from pregnancy to pregnancy for the same mother. There are many possible interesting variables to explore. Some of them may be meaningful. Maybe. This is just a speculative idea. Right now I have no strong opinion on it either way. An opinion would be impossible without data.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the May 23, 2012 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 42 minutes]

Stephen Euin Cobb is an author, futurist, magazine writer and host of the award-winning podcast The Future And You. A contributing editor for Space and Time Magazine; he is also a regular contributor for Robot, H+, Grim Couture andPort Iris magazines; and he spent three years as a columnist and contributing editor for Jim Baen's Universe Magazine. He is an artist, essayist, game designer, transhumanist, and is on the Advisory Board of The Lifeboat Foundation. His novels include Bones Burnt Black, Plague at Redhook and Skinbrain.

Stephen Euin Cobb is today's featured speaker.

Topic: A major photovoltaic problem will hit the United States, and many other nations, in about two or three years (in 2014 and 2015). There is no need to speculate as to how this photovoltaic problem will play out since it has already hit the state of Hawaii. We need only observe the existing problem to fully understand the problem that is to come, since the effects it is currently having on consumers and business and government are all available for scrutiny. Stephen Euin Cobb provides a description, assessment and commentary.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the May 16, 2012 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 31 minutes]

Additional sources of information: First and Second Maui News artcles read in this episode; PV-Magazine; Wikipedia article about Smart Grids

BTW: A smart grid would solve some, or most, or possibly even all of the problems I've described in this episode. However, within the next three years, the United States is not going to replace all of its existing power grid network with a shiny new smart grid. Its just not going to happen that fast. We will need it, but we wont have it until after we have suffered.

Stephen Euin Cobb is an author, futurist, magazine writer and host of the award-winning podcast The Future And You. A contributing editor for Space and Time Magazine; he is also a regular contributor for Robot, H+, Grim Couture and Port Iris magazines; and he spent three years as a columnist and contributing editor for Jim Baen's Universe Magazine. He is an artist, essayist, game designer, transhumanist, and is on the Advisory Board of The Lifeboat Foundation. His novels include Bones Burnt Black, Plague at Redhook and Skinbrain.

Les Johnson (author, speaker and NASA deputy manager) is today's featured guest.

Topic: Part 2 of Trends in space exploration. What's going on now, and some of the missions which are planned for the future.

Les Johnson serves as the Deputy Manager for the Advanced Concepts Office at the NASA George C. Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. He was the technical consultant for the movie Lost in Space. And In his spare time he writes popular science books and articles--for example. In collaboration with C Bangs (an artist) and Greg Matloff (a professor of astronomy) he wrote:Paradise Regained: The Regreening of Earth (2009); Living Off the Land in Space (2007); and with Greg Matloff and Giovanni Vulpetti he wrote Solar Sails: A Novel Approach to Interplanetary Travel (2008). And with Jack McDevitt, he has a new book coming out this month called: Going Interstellar.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the May 9, 2011 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 35 minutes] This is the second half of an interview recorded using Skype on April 27, 2012.

News item: This is the 250th episode of The Future And You.

Les Johnson (author, speaker and NASA deputy manager) is today's featured guest.

Topic: Trends in space exploration. What's going on now, and some of the missions which are planned for the future.

Les Johnson serves as the Deputy Manager for the Advanced Concepts Office at the NASA George C. Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. He was the technical consultant for the movie Lost in Space. And In his spare time he writes popular science books and articles--for example. In collaboration with C Bangs (an artist) and Greg Matloff (a professor of astronomy) he wrote:Paradise Regained: The Regreening of Earth (2009); Living Off the Land in Space (2007); and with Greg Matloff and Giovanni Vulpetti he wrote Solar Sails: A Novel Approach to Interplanetary Travel (2008). And with Jack McDevitt, he has a new book coming out this month called: Going Interstellar.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the May 2, 2011 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 39 minutes] This is the first half of an interview recorded using Skype on April 27, 2012.

News item: The BBC news website published an article describing research showing ways in which pacemakers and other medical implants can be attacked by hackers. Some of these attacks have potentially lethal results. And Listener Emails: Concerns with Marshall Brain's new book Manna: Two Visions of Humanity's Future.

Marshall Brain (founder of HowStuffWorks.com) is today's featured guest.

Topic: The remarkably GOOD future which we can create for ourselves using the robots which will dominate our economy during the next decade or two. (Last week Marshall explored the bad possibilities, this week he explores the good.)

This is a thorough examination of Marshall Brain's new book: Manna: Two Visions of Humanity's Future. One of his two visions is remarkably bad, and the other is remarkably good. Both are completely different from any form of civilization we have seen before. Currently we are on track toward the future that is bad. In today's episode we will discuss the remarkably bad future, Next week we will discuss the remarkably good future.

Marshall Brain is best known as the founder of HowStuffWorks.com, which grew into one of the top Web sites in the country, and sold in 2007 to Discovery Communications for $250 million. He hosted the TV show "Factory Floor" which appeared on the National Geographic channel. And he has written a number of books, articles and essays, which -- just like the famous website he created -- explain in a no-nonsense way how stuff works. A perfect example is his article "How to make a million dollars." Which can be read for free on his website: MarshallBrain.com.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the April 25, 2011 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 33 minutes] This is the second half of an interview recorded using Skype on April 6, 2012.

Marshall Brain (founder of HowStuffWorks.com) is today's featured guest.

Topic: The remarkably BAD side of what the rise of robots may do to our culture, civilization, economy, and lifestyles during the next decade or two. This is a thorough examination of Marshall Brain's new book: Manna: Two Visions of Humanity's Future. One of his two visions is remarkably bad, and the other is remarkably good. Both are completely different from any form of civilization we have seen before. Currently we are on track toward the future that is bad. In today's episode we will discuss the remarkably bad future, Next week we will discuss the remarkably good future.

Marshall Brain is best known as the founder of HowStuffWorks.com, which grew into one of the top Web sites in the country, and sold in 2007 to Discovery Communications for $250 million. He hosted the TV show "Factory Floor" which appeared on the National Geographic channel. And he has written a number of books, articles and essays, which--just like the famous website he created--explain in a no-nonsense way how stuff works. A perfect example is his article "How to make a million dollars," which can be read for free on his website: MarshallBrain.com.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the April 18, 2012 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 30 minutes] This is the first half of an interview recorded using Skype on April 6, 2012.