by Eric Flint
The Future And You is an award-winning audio podcast about the future which may be downloaded and enjoyed, or even copied and shared, for free. Every episode contains many interviews which reveal a wide variety of ideas and opinion from a wide variety of people.
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The June 1, 2007 episode includes all of the following and more:
Should we fear AI? Once we make machines that are smarter than us how will we control or contain them? And if we try, won't they just outsmart us? Robert J. Sawyer feels that AI is a future technology that has dangerous possibilities which are being ignored today; and will continue to be ignored until—thanks to the accelerating pace of technological advancement—it will be too late. Once the AI genie is out of the bottle, there may be no putting it back. Robert J. Sawyer discusses some of the near term dangers, and ponders humanity's ultimate fate. Will we become pets or partners to machines, or something else for which we have no word?
Is the rising popularity of state lotteries really just an unethical "tax" upon the very people who can least afford it—the naive and gullible? And does the widespread popularity of gun ownership in America make the United States the only nation on earth that is unconquerable? Mike Resnick covers these and other subjects such as: Will Puerto Ricans ever vote for statehood, knowing it will mean they'll have to begin paying income taxes? Will the US ever have socialized medicine? When Castro passes away, will Cuba embrace consumerism?
Did An Inconvenient Truth reveal as much about Al Gore and his political aspirations as it did about Al Gore's beliefs concerning climate change? David B. Coe describes what he sees as the many takeaway lessons from the movie including his own estimation of the probability that Al Gore will run for president in 2008, and his chances in competing against Hillary and the rest of the Democratic candidates.
Are public libraries embracing the vast information access powers of the internet? The movement is called "Library 2.0" and Davey Beauchamp (a professional librarian, and part-time writer and voice actor) has been watching it work its way into the quiet book-lined rooms of some, but by no means all, traditional libraries. "Age is becoming irrelevant," Davey says. "I see the elderly generation as well as children actively learning and using the internet."
Davey also speaks of the trends in anime, podcasting and audio theater; as well as his work as editor on the Writers for Relief Anthology II (which will benefit the Bay Area Food Banks). He also announces that he's just been hired to write a rock opera based on the legend of Blue Beard the pirate.
What methods has Microsoft used that have given it a reputation for aggressive monopolism? And is it true, as some claim, that Microsoft's new Vista operating system has stolen 45 things from Apple's OS-10. Randal L. Schwartz talks of this as well as his experiments with podcasting and Geek Cruises.
Will the online SF&F magazines survive? Edmund R. Schubert, editor of Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show, paints a clear picture of the strengths and weakness of this business. Just how much money is there to be made; what are the trends and what is the future?
We also include another installment in our serialization of the Hard SF novel, Bones Burnt Black; and Walt Boyes (The Bananaslug ) & Stoney Compton do their bit to let the world at large know what's in the current issue of Jim Baen's Universe.
News items in this episode include the results of your host's throat surgery. (More on that in the News section near the end of this article).
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And if the current episode's ideas and opinion are not enough to satisfy your curiosity about the future check out the previous month's episode which contains Mike Resnick, Kim Stanley Robinson, Elizabeth Bear, Dave Freer, Paul Levinson and Randal L. Schwartz discussing all the following and more:
Many online magazines now pay professional rates—sometimes much better than print magazines—does this mean the great electronic experiment was a success? Or just that the print magazines are dying? Mike Resnick discusses this and provides another eyewitness report on how bad things really are across Africa. He also answers your host's question about Funny Novels: is there more money but less respect?
Must a generation die off for a culture to change its most deeply held beliefs? Or is our current population somehow learning to become comfortable with nontraditional ideas, behaviors, clothing and lifestyles? Elizabeth Bear speaks of this and of the universal notion of "Us verses Them."
Have we been relying on non-lethal weapons for centuries without even realizing it? Kim Stanley Robinson insists that we have. He also suggests that implanting a computer inside your skull is not trivial. It carries risks of damage and infection, and might best be reserved for solving life-altering problems like blindness or deafness.
Despite the numerous benefits, the renowned programmer and programming activist Randal L. Schwartz insists he will be highly reluctant to accept a computer hardwired into his brain. And he will refuse it entirely if its operating system is made by Microsoft since that would make his mind too easily hacked and too prone to spontaneously crashing.
Cell phones have changed our culture and altered the way we live, but their changes are not yet complete. Paul Levinson ponders what is yet to come.
Large scale engineering projects have been less visible recently thanks to all the buzz about nanotechnology. But the future is not given only to the very small. Those who design big are still thinking big, and the biggest place to build big is in the biggest place of all: space. Dave Freer presents his vision of how humanity will spread beyond the earth and fulfill its destiny among the stars.
This episode also includes another installment in our serialization of the Hard SF novel, Bones Burnt Black; as well as the official segment from Jim Baen's Universe in which Walt Boyes (The Bananaslug ) & Stoney Compton take us inside the greatest online science fiction and fantasy magazine in the world.
News items in this episode include the recent discovery of the first earthlike planet outside our solar system, as well as a mention of your host's upcoming surgery. (More on that in the news section near the end of this article).
Listener feedback includes emailed comments on superconductivity, sexual equality, the singularity and transhumanism.
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Mini-Essay
Prediction: Diabetics will all stop poking themselves to draw blood
The first step in securing a patent is verifying that it has not already been patented. For those of you who feel you may just come up with the next great invention, there are a number of places online to perform your search. One of the easiest is at http://baens-universe.com/work/www.google.com/patents. It took me just thirty minutes to verify that the diabetes device I invented recently (and will tell you about in the following paragraphs) had already been invented and patent number 7125382 granted for it, thus saving me a great deal of unnecessary work in proceeding with the complicated and expensive process of securing a patent.
At this point I would like to make a prediction concerning the near future:
Sometime in the next three to five years, diabetics will all stop poking needles into their fingertips forever. Measuring their blood sugar levels will be done by a device the size of a grain of rice which will be permanently implanted under the skin. The device's measurements will be transferred to a handheld unit by radio waves, and the tiny amount of electricity needed to run the implanted device will be provided to it by the handheld unit using electrical induction. This will involve no new technology, only the combining of two existing technologies: specifically passive RIFT and the little sugar sensitive detector built into the meters that diabetics have been sliding their tiny drops of blood into now for several years.
A cluster of patents have been granted in the last half decade which describe ways to combine RFID chips with a variety of implanted medical devices, with the sole purpose of permanently implanting these devices under the patient's skin such that the medical readings they gather can be transmitted out of the patient without wires.
; Some of these devices would measure blood pressure, nerve collapse, and the concentrations of various chemicals in the blood—including sugar. For hospital stays a device that takes many readings would be best, but for a diabetic's home use, the blood sugar level is enough; although blood pressure will probably be included at no additional cost.
Once this implant is in place, a reading of blood sugar levels is done by bringing a small handheld device within a few inches of the implant where it communicates using radio waves. The sugar reading is displayed on the handheld unit, and no blood is spilled, no fingers are pricked, and no pain is felt.
As a comical side note: patent number 6847892 has been granted to the same assignee which claims that they invented every conceivable use of an RFID chip and have incorporated it into a single device. The patent is 93 pages long and claims their device is a medical implant for measuring blood chemistry, but it also has security uses, police uses, uses by spies, can be used to retrieve lost luggage, track trucks as they drive across country, automatically water a tree, help athletes in their personal training, track food shipments, monitor hazardous waste, follow ocean cargos, locate lost children, prevent kidnappings, protect endangered species, locate stolen cars, even provide caller ID.
I did quick search of the patent's text and was able to verify that it does not contain the words kitchen or sink. An obvious oversight.
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News items:
The Discovery of Another Earth
Many times, beginning with the very first episode, this show has examined the possibility (some might say the inevitability) of humanity finding another planet like our earth. You have, no doubt, heard that on April 24, 2007 scientists may have found that planet. This earth-like exoplanet has a mass about five times greater than earth and a diameter about 50% greater than the earth, which would give it a surface gravity about twice that of earth.
The planet orbits its star (the red dwarf, Gliese 581, which is 20.4 light years from earth) at a distance which places it in the habitable zone. Because of this, its surface temperature is estimated to lie between 0 and 40 degrees Celsius—which would allow water to be exist on its surface as a liquid. Scientists feel the planet's surface is likely to either be rocky or to be covered with oceans of water.
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Your Host's Throat Surgery
The outpatient surgery on my throat went very well and does not seem to have changed the tone or timber of my voice. A small growth was removed from the base of my right vocal chord on May 8, 2007 and has tested to not contain any cancer.
I'd like to thank the many listeners and guests who generously volunteered their time to read the monthly installments of my novel Bones Burnt Black after I proved unable to read the chapter scheduled for the April episode. I do not expect to have this problem again, but if I do I will make every effort to have someone else read the chapter for me so there are no more episodes without a chapter.
And for those who are curious how many more months there are before the novel is completed. I estimate it should finish in November of 2007, give or take a month or two. If you find yourself impatient for the ending please feel free to proceed directly to Amazon.com and order your copy today. I'm sure it will make a great gift.
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Your Host's Wikipedia Article Vandalized
On March 23 of this year, the article about me at Wikipedia was vandalized. While this does not mean that I have arrived into the world of celebrities, I take it as a backhanded compliment of sorts. The vandalization was spotted and repaired within two hours by one of Wikipedia's administrators who goes by the username of "Gogo Dodo." (Those who wish to see the vandalized version, may do so by going to the Wikipedia article for "Stephen Euin Cobb," clinking on the "history" tab at the top of the article, selecting the March 23 version, just below the one by "Gogo Dodo," and clicking "compare selected versions.")
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RavenCon Interviews
I had a wonderful time at RavenCon in Richmond Va. I talked with fans, watched standup comedians, bought trinkets in the dealer room, and generally hobnobbed with my fellow wizards. More important to you, however, is that I recorded seven excellent interviews some of which will begin appearing in next month's episode.
Some of the people I interviewed include Robert J Sawyer (who was guest of honor at the con), David B. Coe (who has been on the show before), Edmund R. Schubert (the editor at Orson Scott Card's online magazine), Kelly Lockhart (an experienced radio DJ), Hildy Silverman (who edits a magazine about fertility and owns one which publishes SF&F), Davey Beauchamp (the wildest librarian I have ever met), and Paul Fischer (one of my fellow podcasters).
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Future Appearances
Listeners may visit with the host of The Future And You at any of the following SF&F conventions: ConCarolinas in Charlotte NC (June 1-3, 2007), LibertyCon in Chattanooga TN (July 27-29, 2007) or DragonCon in Atlanta GA (August 31-September 3, 2007).
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You can learn more about this podcast here, or here or even here.
Or learn more about its host here or here.
THE END
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