The Future And You

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 23 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 für 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 1980's 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.

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 shows Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis) 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 Kelly Lockhart and the late Jim Baen, and just exactly who kissed who to raise $100 during the charity auction.

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 Bachelor's in astronomy, a Master's 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.