The Future And You

Toni Weisskopf, Julie Cochrane, Michael Z. Williamson, and Jason Cordova are our featured guests.

Topic: The growing cultural divide between the military and civilians, as viewed by military personnel and military families.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the November 23, 2011 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 34 minutes]. This panel was recorded on July 16, 2011 in Chattanooga TN, at the SF&F convention LibertyCon.

Toni Weisskopf is the publisher of Baen Books: one of the largest publishers of SF&F in America, and probably the number one publisher of Military SF.

Julie Cochrane has degrees and training in chemistry, psychology and computer science. Her hobbies include pistol marksmanship, history, criminology and folk music. She is coauthor of three military SF novels with the New York Times best-selling author John Ringo.

Jason Cordova served in the Navy, and is the author of the novel Corruptor.

Michael Z. Williamson is retired from the United States military after 25 years and is both a science fiction and military fiction author. He is also associate editor at SurvivalBlog where he does reviews of disaster preparedness products. He has consulted on military matters, weapons and disaster preparedness for Discovery Channel and Outdoor Channel productions. He tests and reviews firearms and gear for manufacturers. He is the author of at least ten military SF novels, one of which is a collaboration with the New York Times best-selling author John Ringo.

Stephen Euin Cobb (your host) gives his opinion on a variety of future topics.

Topics: how popular science fiction movies effect decision making within our civilization; immortality through nanotechnology; movies such as: Blade Runner, Terminator, Minority Report, and Gattica; virtual realities (such as Second Life and World of Warcraft); why human augmentation may be inevitable; the widespread resistance to human augmentation which exists already; the creation of human organs using 3D printers which print with living cells; the de Vinchi surgical machine; the novel Rollback (by Robert J. Sawyer); Life Extension and Age Reversing; measurable loss of function in the various organs of the body; the likely availability of life extension technologies, and the effect they may have on the future of civilization.

This is the November 16, 2011 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 42 minutes]. This interview of Stephen Euin Cobb was recorded using Skype on October 15, 2011, and was conducted by Richard Buxton (a screenwriter and film student in London) as part of Richard's research for his thesis, which concerns the cumulative effect science fiction movies have on civilization.

Richard Buxton studied Fine Art at Central St Martins in London, and completed an MA in Production Design for Film & TV at Kingston University. Currently he is working toward a Film Making Degree at SAE Institute London with an emphasis in screenwriting. Part of that work will be his thesis which concerns the effect which science fiction films have had on society. He writes for Tracksounds (a website dedicated to film scores) and has appeared on SoundCast (a podcast of interviews and commentary about film scores).

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

News Item: CBS News reports that Ridding body of old "zombie" cells slows aging process, study shows. Mayo Clinic scientists may have hit upon a way to slow the aging process. The key, they report in a tantalizing new study, is purging the body of senescent cells - old "zombie" cells that no longer work as they should.

Richard Buxton (a screenwriter and film student in London) is our featured guest.

Topic: Trends in movies and the movie making industry.

Richard Buxton studied Fine Art at Central St Martins in London, and completed an MA in Production Design for Film & TV at Kingston University. Currently he is working toward a Film Making Degree at SAE Institute London with an emphasis in screenwriting. Part of that work will be his thesis which concerns the effect which science fiction films have had on society. He writes for Tracksounds (a website dedicated to film scores) and has appeared on Soundcast (a podcast of interviews and commentary about film scores).

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the November 9, 2011 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 28 minutes]. This is the second half of an interview recorded using Skype on October 15, 2011.

News Items: [1] DARPA plans to put 1,000 3-D printers (rapid fabrication devices) into high schools across the United States as a way to encourage American young people to go into engineering and particularly manufacturing, and to help high schoolers build STEM skills. [2] A Georgia Tech team has received a $3 million grant to explore how bacteria interact on a molecular level to form networks. The research may one day guide the design of nanodevices able to communicate with one another and accomplish tasks at the nanolevel of one billionth of a meter in size, which could lead to future breakthroughs in nanorobotics. [3] Military personal, academics, and diplomats met in Virginia October 25-28 for Unified Quest, a seminar war game to explore the geostrategic environment of the future. “The purpose of this symposium is about plausible strategic landscapes,” said Col. Kevin Felix, director of the Army’s Future Warfare Division. “The four working groups were given wide latitude to work towards 2028, and it was about bringing in the right folks.”

Richard Buxton (a screenwriter and film student in London) is our featured guest.

Topic: Trends in movies and the movie making industry.

Richard Buxton studied Fine Art at Central St Martins in London, and completed an MA in Production Design for Film & TV at Kingston University. Currently he is working toward a Film Making Degree at SAE Institute London with an emphasis in screenwriting. Part of that work will be his thesis which concerns the effect which science fiction films have had on society.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the November 2, 2011 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 35 minutes]. This is the first half of an interview, which was recorded using Skype on October 15, 2011.

News Item: Rocksmith is a new video game which trumps Guitar Hero by teaching the player how to play real music on a real guitar. This game is one more example of a growing assortment of software which harness the accelerated learning environment of video games to allow players to develop skills which can then be used in the world outside the game. Many futurists believe (and your host is one of them) that in the years and decades to come the variety of skills which will be learned in this way will become vast and uncountable.

Chris and Janet Morris (US military and government advisers on non-lethal weapons) are our featured guests.

Topic: Non-Lethal Weapons: How they change the future of military engagements (Part 3). Also Chris and Janet's fiction anthology series': Heroes in Hell and Lawyers in Hell.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the October 26, 2011 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 48 minutes]. This is the third and final portion of this interview which was recorded using Skype on October 1, 2011.

Janet Morris is President and CEO of M2 Technologies, Inc., a woman-owned corporation specializing in non-lethal weapons (NLW), novel technology applications, tactics and technology. Her seminal non-lethal concept and novel technology applications work has been used by the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Office of the Secretary of Defense, and was excerpted in the Army's Draft Operations Concept for Disabling Measures (920904). She has taught or provided course material to the U.S. Air Force's Air Command and Staff College, National Defense University's (IRMC) School of Information Warfare and Strategy, and Penn State University Applied Research Laboratory's Non-Lethal Institute. She has provided and presented seminars and briefings to the Defense Science Board, the Congressional Research Service, Senate Armed Services Committee Staff, and the Center for Naval Analysis.

Chris Morris is Vice-President and Board Chairman of M2 Technologies, Inc., specializing in strategic planning, tactical support, and technology exploitation. His work on non-lethal, developmental, and foreign technology policy and implementation issues has been used by the U.S. Army, the U.S. Marine Corps, OSD Office of Munitions, OSD Net Assessment, and excerpted in the U.S. Army's Draft Operations Concept for Disabling Measures (920904). He has taught course elements and contributed papers to the U.S. Air Force Air Command and Staff College and National Defense University's (IRMC) School of Information Warfare & Strategy. He has presented Strategic Planning papers and papers on technology exploitation to the Center for Naval Analysis, the Defense Science Board, Georgia Institute of Technology, Penn State University's Advanced Research Laboratory, and the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

News Item: A new cyber-threat warning issued by the United States National Cyber-Alert System in conjunction with the Department of Homeland Security. Unspecified vulnerability in Medtronic Paradigm wireless insulin pump 512, 522, 712, and 722 allows remote attackers to modify the delivery of an insulin bolus dose and cause a denial of service (adverse human health effects) via unspecified vectors involving wireless communications and knowledge of the device's serial number, as demonstrated by Jerome Radcliffe at the Black Hat USA conference in August 2011. NOTE: the vendor has disputed the severity of this issue, saying "we believe the risk of deliberate, malicious, or unauthorized manipulation of medical devices is extremely low... we strongly believe it would be extremely difficult for a third-party to wirelessly tamper with your insulin pump... you would be able to detect tones on the insulin pump that weren't intentionally programmed and could intervene accordingly."

Special thanks go to Randal L. Schwartz for emailing me this news item. (Randal is a widely known author of programming books and articles. He is co-host of FLOSS Weekly, and has been a guest on The Future And You six times in the last five years.)

Chris and Janet Morris (US military and government advisers on non-lethal weapons) are our featured guests.

Topic: Non-Lethal Weapons: How they change the future of military engagements (Part 2)

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the October 19, 2011 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 44 minutes]. This is the second third of this interview which was recorded using Skype on October 1, 2011. The final third will follow in next week's episode.

Janet Morris is President and CEO of M2 Technologies, Inc., a woman-owned corporation specializing in non-lethal weapons (NLW), novel technology applications, tactics and technology. Her seminal non-lethal concept and novel technology applications work has been used by the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Office of the Secretary of Defense, and was excerpted in the Army's Draft Operations Concept for Disabling Measures (920904). She has taught or provided course material to the U.S. Air Force's Air Command and Staff College, National Defense University's (IRMC) School of Information Warfare and Strategy, and Penn State University Applied Research Laboratory's Non-Lethal Institute. She has provided and presented seminars and briefings to the Defense Science Board, the Congressional Research Service, Senate Armed Services Committee Staff, and the Center for Naval Analysis.

Chris Morris is Vice-President and Board Chairman of M2 Technologies, Inc., specializing in strategic planning, tactical support, and technology exploitation. His work on non-lethal, developmental, and foreign technology policy and implementation issues has been used by the U.S. Army, the U.S. Marine Corps, OSD Office of Munitions, OSD Net Assessment, and excerpted in the U.S. Army's Draft Operations Concept for Disabling Measures (920904). He has taught course elements and contributed papers to the U.S. Air Force Air Command and Staff College and National Defense University's (IRMC) School of Information Warfare & Strategy. He has presented Strategic Planning papers and papers on technology exploitation to the Center for Naval Analysis, the Defense Science Board, Georgia Institute of Technology, Penn State University's Advanced Research Laboratory, and the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

Chris and Janet Morris (US military and government advisers on non-lethal weapons) are our featured guests.

Topic: Non-Lethal Weapons: How they change the future of military engagements.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the October 12, 2011 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 49 minutes]. This is the first third of my interview with them, which was recorded using Skype on October 1, 2011. The remainder of this interview will follow in two consecutive episodes.

Janet Morris is President and CEO of M2 Technologies, Inc., a woman-owned corporation specializing in non-lethal weapons (NLW), novel technology applications, tactics and technology. Her seminal non-lethal concept and novel technology applications work has been used by the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Office of the Secretary of Defense, and was excerpted in the Army's Draft Operations Concept for Disabling Measures (920904). She has taught or provided course material to the U.S. Air Force's Air Command and Staff College, National Defense University's (IRMC) School of Information Warfare and Strategy, and Penn State University Applied Research Laboratory's Non-Lethal Institute. She has provided and presented seminars and briefings to the Defense Science Board, the Congressional Research Service, Senate Armed Services Committee Staff, and the Center for Naval Analysis.

Chris Morris is Vice-President and Board Chairman of M2 Technologies, Inc., specializing in strategic planning, tactical support, and technology exploitation. His work on non-lethal, developmental, and foreign technology policy and implementation issues has been used by the U.S. Army, the U.S. Marine Corps, OSD Office of Munitions, OSD Net Assessment, and excerpted in the U.S. Army's Draft Operations Concept for Disabling Measures (920904). He has taught course elements and contributed papers to the U.S. Air Force Air Command and Staff College and National Defense University's (IRMC) School of Information Warfare & Strategy. He has presented Strategic Planning papers and papers on technology exploitation to the Center for Naval Analysis, the Defense Science Board, Georgia Institute of Technology, Penn State University's Advanced Research Laboratory, and the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

Marina Sergeyeva(medical student) James Maxey (author and "big science geek") and Stephen Euin Cobb (your host) are our featured guests.

Topic: Technical, Legal and Moral Aspects of Cryonics

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the October 5, 2011 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 41 minutes]. This is the second half of a discussion panel recorded before a live audience on June 4, 2011 in Charlotte North Carolina at the SF&F convention ConCarolinas. (The first half remains available in last week's episode.)

Marina Sergeyeva has degrees in biochemistry and mathematics, and will soon begin medical school. Formerly of the Ukraine, she now lives in the US.

James Maxey is the author of the superhero novel Nobody Gets the Girl as well as the Dragon Age fantasy series which includes the novels Bitterwood,Dragonforge, and Dragonseed. Set a thousand years in the future, after the fall of our modern civilization, in a world dominated by the intelligent dragons we created through genetic engineering. Humans are reduced to slaves, and the remnants of long forgotten nanotechnology make the world a wondrous place of magic.

Stephen Euin Cobb is the author of Bones Burnt Black and Skinbrain.

Marina Sergeyeva (medical student) James Maxey (author and "big science geek") and Stephen Euin Cobb (your host) are our featured guests.

Topic: Technical, Legal and Moral Aspects of Cryonics

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the September 28, 2011 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 35 minutes]. This is the first half of a discussion panel recorded before a live audience on June 4, 2011 in Charlotte North Carolina at the SF&F convention ConCarolinas. (The second half will be in next week's episode.)

Marina Sergeyeva has degrees in biochemistry and mathematics, and will soon begin medical school. Formerly of the Ukraine, she now lives in the US.

James Maxey is the author of the superhero novel Nobody Gets the Girl as well as the Dragon Age fantasy series which includes the novels Bitterwood, Dragonforge, and Dragonseed. Set a thousand years in the future, after the fall of our modern civilization, in a world dominated by the intelligent dragons we created through genetic engineering. Humans are reduced to slaves, and the remnants of long forgotten nanotechnology make the world a wondrous place of magic.

Stephen Euin Cobb is the author of Bones Burnt Black and Skinbrain.

News Items: [1] New eye implant improves vision by making the cornea mimic a pinhole camera; [2] Tased from above… The new ShadowHawk robot helicopter starts patrolling civilians; [3] Noticeably deeper sleep produced by TA-65.

James Maxey (author and "big science geek") Emlee Vassilos (actress) and Stephen Euin Cobb (your host) are our featured guests.

Topic: Alternative Energy Sources

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the September 21, 2011 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 39 minutes]. This is the second half of a discussion panel recorded before a live audience on June 4, 2011 in Charlotte North Carolina at the SF&F convention ConCarolinas. (The first half is available in last week's episode.)

James Maxey is the author of the superhero novel Nobody Gets the Girl as well as the Dragon Age fantasy series which includes the novels Bitterwood, Dragonforge, and Dragonseed. Set a thousand years in the future, after the fall of our modern civilization, in a world dominated by the intelligent dragons we created through genetic engineering. Humans are reduced to slaves, and the remnants of long forgotten nanotechnology make the world a wondrous place of magic.

Emlee Vassilos is an actress who is co-staring (as Lily) in the soon to be released zombie horror movie A Few Brains More, which is the sequel to Fist Full of Brains. She has also performed in Destiny Road, Renee, and the TV movie Trinity Goodheart.

Stephen Euin Cobb is the author of Bones Burnt Black and Skinbrain.

News Items: [1] Social networks have become a powerful tool for those seeking employment; [2] based on the latest Kepler findings, astronomer Seth Shostak estimates that "within a thousand light-years of Earth," there are "at least 30,000" habitable planets; [3] the Open Science Summit will be held next month on Oct 22-23 in Mountain View CA.