The Future And You
Ideas and opinion about the future based on verifiable facts of today.
 

James Maxey (author of the Dragon Age fantasy series and Nobody Gets the Girl) is our featured guest.

Topics: the current search for other earths and what effect their discovery might have on people: the demise of circus freaks as professional performers; and (despite James' long-term atheism) his fascination with Angels, both in their original source material and in the popular culture.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the May 27, 2009 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 39 minutes]

James Maxey is the author of 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.

Also in this episode we begin a 12 part serialization of a complete story from Jim Baen's Universe Magazine. The story is the Hugo Award nominated Article of Faith, written by Mike Resnick and read by Walt Boyes.

 

Direct download: TFAY_2009_5_27.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 12:01am EDT

James Maxey (author of the Dragon Age fantasy series and Nobody Gets the Girl) is our featured guest.

Topics: the various ways our modern civilization might come to an end (all the usual suspects along with  total economic collapse); disruptive technologies such as the large scale use of cheap solar cells which could lead to the abandonment of the electric power grid; how the differences between men and women may affect their acceptance of the robotic husbands and wives which will become available within a decade or two; life-sized anatomically-correct sex dolls of today and the 2007 movie, Lars and the Real Girl, which co-stars one such doll.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the May 20, 2009 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 35 minutes]

James Maxey is the author of the Dragon Age fantasy series which includes the novels Bitterwood, Dragonforge and Dragonseed. Set a thousand years in the future -- after the fall of today's civilization, in a world dominated by the intelligent dragons we created through genetic engineering -- humans are reduced to pets and slaves, and the remnants of long forgotten nanotechnology make the world a place of wondrous magic.

 

Direct download: TFAY_2009_5_20.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 12:01am EDT

Aliese, a college student, is today's featured guest.

Topics: trends in college in general, as well as in classes, dorm life, students and teachers. Also how personal computers and cell phones improve or degrade the learning experience. As well as YouTube, Facebook, Charlie Chaplin and wedding photography.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the May 13, 2009 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 38 minutes]

Aliese is studying for a degree in photography and fine arts, and has completed one year at a school with about 1,000 students.

 

Direct download: TFAY_2009_5_13.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 12:01am EDT

Stephen Euin Cobb is today's featured guest. (This is the second half of the experiment in which the questions I normally pose to others I ask of myself.)

Topics: Why I am an atheist and why I am not an anti-theist; my insistance that there is a rapidly growing need for a new and different kind of tolerance, greater than any this world has ever seen before; how this universe will end, and why I think we will someday engineer other universes; why past predictions of the future have always been so wrong; the probability that we will invent faster-than-light travel; and my estimation of the probability of The Singularity.

Also described are: why I started doing this show, why I chose the future as my topic, and how doing this show for three years has completely re-written my understanding of the future.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the May 6, 2009 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 34 minutes]

Stephen Euin Cobb is an author, futurist and the host of the award-winning podcast The Future and You. He is also a columnist and contributing editor for Jim Baen's Universe Magazine, the online magazine from Baen Books. His articles have also appeared in Space and Time Magazine, H+ Magazine and >[gRiM]<>[cOuTuRe]< magazine. Within Second Life (as Boc Cryotank) he is a photographer and photojournalist. He has invented several games, the most popular being Death Stacks for which there is an annual tournament held each summer in Charlotte NC. He is also an artist, essayist, transhumanist, and is on the Advisory Board of The Lifeboat Foundation.

News: The Kepler mission to discover earth-like planets will radio its results to earth only once every thirty days. (NASA has not announced when this first report will be sent.  Possibly late May to mid June 2009) During Kepler's first 30 days of watching 100,000 stars, it will discover planets which orbit their star in ten days or less; as well as about half of the planets which orbit their star in fifteen days or less. In its second report Kepler will identify planets which orbit in less than 20 days, and about half of those that orbit in more than 20 days but less than 30 days. Every monthly report will increase, by a specific number of days, the orbital period of those planets discovered. But since the statistical probability of any planet crossing the face of its star diminishes with the size of its orbit, each of Kepler's monthly reports will contain fewer and fewer new planets. The first month will have, by far, the most.  Progessive reports will include planets in wider and wider orbits until the orbits of earthlike planets are (hopefully) revealed later in the three and a half year mission.

 

Direct download: TFAY_2009_5_6.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 12:01am EDT