Jim Baen's Universe

What's New in The Future And You

Columns

January 2009

Written by Stephen Euin Cobb

Alan Dean Foster, Jerry Pournelle and the Italian transhumanist, Stefano Vaj: interviewing brilliant and fascinating people is a good way to return to normalcy after shoulder surgery put my right arm (my computer-mouse arm) out of commission for the entire month of November 2008. That’s what kept me from doing my show and from writing my column and articles for this magazine. I'm feeling a lot better now, as evidenced by your reading these fresh new words. But more on that later.

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Recent Guests

Larry Niven, the Hugo and Nebula award-winning author of Ringworld (and other novels and short stories in his Known Space series) and co-author (with Jerry Pournelle) of The Mote in God's Eye, Lucifer’s Hammer and Footfall.

Jerry Pournelle (author, journalist, columnist, essayist, blogger, political advisor) and co-author (with Larry Niven) of The Mote in God's Eye, Lucifer’s Hammer and Footfall.

Alan Dean Foster (author of over 100 novels and noted world traveler) is author of the Commonwealth series and Spellsinger series, and the trilogies: The Damned, The Taken and Icerigger; as well as novelizations of the first three Aliens movies, The Chronicles of Riddick, Outland, Clash of the Titans, Starman, The Thing, Alien Nation, Transformers, The Last Starfighter, and the first Star Wars novelization, which he co-wrote with George Lucas.

Les Johnson (author, lecturer and NASA scientist) is 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 is coauthor (with Gregory L. Matloff and C Bangs) of the book: Living off the Land in Space, and coauthor (with Giovanni Vulpetti and Gregory L. Matloff) of Solar Sails: A Novel Approach to Interplanetary Travel. He has been on CNN, Fox News, NPR, The Discovery Channel, The Learning Channel, and in the New York Times.

R.U. Sirius (writer, talk show host, editor and cyberculture icon) was co-founder and original Editor-In-Chief of Mondo 2000 Magazine; and is now Editor-In-Chief of the new transhumanist magazine called H+. He has also been a regular columnist for Wired News and the San Francisco Examiner, a contributing writer for Wired and Artforum International, and has written for Time, Esquire and Rolling Stone.

Neal Barrett Jr. is the award-winning author of over fifty novels of science fiction, fantasy, mystery/suspense, historical and 'off-the-wall' mainstream fiction. He did the novelization of the motion picture Dungeons & Dragons, and was Guest of Honor at the World Science Fiction Convention in 1997.

Dr. Nick Bostrom (author, lecturer and Philosopher at Oxford University) is co-founder (with David Pearce) of the World Transhumanist Association, and (with James Hughes) of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies (IEET). Author of the book Anthropic Bias: Observation Selection Effects in Science and Philosophy, he has been a consultant for the Central Intelligence Agency in the U.S., and for the European Commission and the European Group on Ethics in Brussels.

Dr. Ben Goertzel (scientist, author, futurist and pioneer in the field of Artificial Intelligence) is the CEO of Novamente, and the Principle architect of the Novamente Cognition Engine. He is also the Director of Research at the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence, and is a founding member of the Order of Cosmic Engineers. He is the Author of over 70 research papers, journalistic articles and eight scholarly books dealing with topics in cognitive sciences and futurism.

David Pearce, the British philosopher and co-founder (with Dr. Nick Bostrom) of the World Transhumanist Association, has written: The Good Drug Guide, Superhappiness, Utopian Surgery, The Wired Society, and The Hedonistic Imperative. He serves on the editorial review board of the scientific journal Medical Hypotheses, and is co-founder of the Abolitionist Society and serves as its honorary president. He is also a vegan and a transhumanist.

Doctor Bob Boan, a scientist (now semi-retired) formerly with US intelligence space programs and NASA, and coauthor (along with Doctor Travis S. Taylor) of the book: An Introduction to Planetary Defense: A Study of Modern Warfare Applied to Extra-Terrestrial Invasion. This book makes a serious and scientifically rigorous analysis of exactly how to defend Earth against an attack from space.

Brain Wang (writer, speaker and noted futurist) is a Senior Associate of the Foresight Institute, a member of the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology Task Force, and on the Advisory Board of both the Nanoethics Group and the Lifeboat Foundation. His blog is NextBigFuture.com, but he is also a featured blogger on Michael Anissimov's acceleratingfuture.com, and on Ray Kurzweil's kurzweilAI.net.

Chris Phoenix (nanotechnology scientist, author and researcher) is the co-founder and Director of Research for CRN (the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology). He is also a Scientific Advisor for The Nanotechnology Group, Inc., on the Scientific Advisory Board for Nanorex, Inc. and a Senior Associate at the Foresight Nanotech Institute.

David Orban (futurist, speaker and business executive) is the founder of WideTag, Inc. which is working to place CO2 sensors into cell phones so that the CO2 concentrations across a nation or continent can be mapped with unheard of precision. He is also Founder and Director of Singularity Institute Europe; an Advisory Board Member of the Lifeboat Foundation; Founder and CEO of Questar; Founder of Vulcano; and a Founding Member of Lunarez.

Rhonda Leigh Jones (author of erotic romance novels involving Vampires and artfully developed BDSM, including The Maestro's Butterfly and The Maestro's Maker) who is just back from a year living in and participating in the Eastern European culture of Romania.

Rudi Hoffman, the world's leading cryonics insurance provider, who has been writing cryonic insurance since 1994, and currently has more than 80% of the world's market share. He is on the Board of Advisers for the Lifeboat Foundation, and is a Senior Associate with the Foresight Institute.

Phyllis George and Billy George, who have worked in banking for many years and describe the trends within all of banking, and especially at your neighborhood bank, and how these trends are changing your bank into what it will eventually become.

Doctor Adrian Bowyer (inventor of the RepRap machine) is a professor of engineering and mathematics at the University of Bath in England. In addition to making shoes, coat hooks, door handles, gears, plastic jewelry, cups, flasks, and a shot glass for toasting its own creation; the RepRap machine is the first machine in all of human history that can make most of its own parts. What's more, the material the machine needs to make more of itself can be grown in your garden.

Julie Grimaldi (president of Police Futurists International) was researcher, project manager, analyst and advisor to the Ontario Provincial Police executive command staff. Police Futurists International promotes excellence in police work by applying the discipline of Futures Research.

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News Items Mentioned in the Show

() CNN laid off its entire Science and Technology reporting team including their Senior Science Reporter Miles O'Brian. It’s not clear if they believe that science has completed its mission and will never again have anything new to report.

() New Scientist Magazine reports that eating food with heavier isotopes of hydrogen and other atoms might lengthen human lives. Heavier isotopes are known to produce stronger covalent bonds, and consequently, more stable organic molecules.

() Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, describes his efforts to get China to lift their ban on Wikipedia.

() A review of Robot Magazine. A glossy, full-color, 80 page-thick magazine crammed with articles about how to make robots, program robots, where to get robot parts, and what has happened at each of the many robot competitions.

() The Annual Death Stacks Tournament (a game invented by your host) has been invited to become part of the IAGO World Tour by The International Abstract Games Organization.

() The December 17, 2008 episode of The Future And You was the show’s third anniversary episode. R.U. Sirius was the featured guest.

() The Future And You, and other podcasts, can be listened to by phone. Podlines assigned this show the phone number +1 (210) 957-5545.

() The City State of Extropia inside Second Life celebrated its first anniversary. (Your host's photos may be viewed on Flickr.)

() I attended my first baby shower inside Second Life. On December 14, 2008 Giulio Prisco (in Spain at the time) threw the shower for Amara Graps (who was in Denver). Photos I took are on my Flickr page.

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Anecdotal News about my Shoulder Surgery

Almost completely back to normal now, I will probably return to work very soon. During the month of November, however, I had to suspend my show because my right arm was not strong enough to operate my computer mouse. (Yes, you read that correctly. But you can go back and read it again. I’ll wait here.)

Four episodes would have been produced during November, but were not. Worrying that the listeners might think I abandoned the show, I struggled to put up a blog post each week to let them know what was going on and that the show would be back as soon as possible.

What follows are the postings I made during those four weeks. I haven’t edited them, so if I sound a bit dimwitted blame the pain medicines.

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November 5, 2008

The surgery on my right shoulder went very well. It was performed seven days ago on October 29, 2008. I am now in physical therapy and on medicines for the pain.

Unfortunately, thanks to the pain of moving my right arm combined with the mental sluggishness I'm getting from the pain medicines, my hope of doing an episode of The Future And You this week is out of the question. Even simple tasks like eating, showering and typing this tiny message all involve huge effort, moderate pain and vast amounts of concentration and cleverness since even the most basic bodily movements have to be reinvented from the bottom up.

I don't know how many weeks of recovery I will need before I can start producing episodes again. Maybe this will be the only week I miss, or maybe it will take two or three. One thing is sure: I don't like sitting on the sidelines. The future is coming faster every day and I want to be in the thick of it.

I'll be back soon. In the meantime I'll keep you updated each Wednesday.

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November 12, 2008

My recovery from surgery (14 days ago on October 29, 2008) is coming along well. My doctor and physical therapist are both pleased with my progress. Though I still take it every six hours, I've reduced my pain medicine to its minimum dose, and I can mostly take care of myself at my own house.

Thank you for the many wonderful messages wishing me a speedy recovery. It's always great to hear that there are people who don't like it when I'm hurting. This little post is to give you a clearer sense of how things are progressing.

I spent the first week after the operation living with relatives. And even though I'm living in my own house again, they still have to come get me to take me to my physical therapy twice a week since it's against the law to drive while taking my prescription pain medicine.

My surgery was an arthroscopic procedure to repair a 'full-thickness tear of the rotator cuff.' I've learned that this is a very common injury. My surgeon does two or three of these surgical repairs every week. The rotator cuff is a sheet of tendon-like material that covers the shoulder joint like a hood. But its not there to just to cover it. The cuff is structural. The portion of the rotator cuff in my arm that was torn was the part that curves over the top of the shoulder and attaches the upper end of the muscle which raises my arm to the bones of my shoulder.

The surgical procedure involves placing two anchors in the bone, then using sutures to draw the rotator back into contact with the bone and roughing up the mating surfaces enough that they bleed and so can begin to heal back together. Later, the anchors will be absorbed into the body.

With stitches inside my shoulder, the things I'm not allowed to do mostly center around not raising my right arm. It's not enough to not raise it often. I have to not raise it ever. I have to protect my arm from moving in any direction that will tear the stitches holding the rotator together. To aid in this they gave me a sling to keep my arm in for a month or two. It's very lightweight, surprisingly comfortable, closes with Velcro and is completely black. And since there might be a danger of rolling onto my arm while sleeping, I'm not allowed to sleep in a bed. I'm required to sleep in an easy chair.

I am extremely right handed, so normally my left hand doesn't know how to do anything. But I'm learning how to eat and brush my teeth and even use a computer mouse with my left hand. I've also learned that by pushing my keyboard back a foot or more from the edge of my desk, and then resting the entire weight of my right arm on the desk, I can type. But I can't lift my right arm from the desk since that is very painful and might tear the stitches. Instead, I have to lift the entire weight of my right arm with my left arm.

Another learning experience involved voting. I'm an American, and the U.S. General Election was just six days after my operation. So I sat in the passenger seat of the car wearing my hospital robe and with my arm in a sling and my head full of medicine while my 72 year old mother walked inside and brought two pole workers out to me with a computer tablet style voting machine. I may have spent less time at the poles than anyone in America that day. We were there ten minutes.

I still don't know how many weeks my show will be on hiatus. One more week, maybe two, we'll see. In the meantime, I will try to keep you up to date as to my condition. One last note: December will be the show's three year anniversary. I'll see if I can't come up with something special. Bye for now.

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November 19, 2008

My recovery and my therapy are still proceeding well.

I will have to wear the sling and sleep in an easy chair until I see the doctor on December 8, 2008. He might let me stop wearing the sling. Although, to be honest, the sling is still very helpful right now.

I've been using my left hand for everything including operating my computer mouse. But last Saturday I made the mistake of controlling the mouse with my right hand. After a couple hours of that my arm was killing me so bad I had to go back to a full dose of pain medicine. The pain didn't return to normal until Sunday evening.

I haven't figured out how to shave left-handed, so I'm growing a full beard. I might keep it after my right arm gets better. I'm not sure yet.

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November 26, 2008

I've switched from using the prescription pain medicines to using a maximum dose of Tylenol. I still have to use my left hand for everything but the throbbing pain is gone and only the temporary pains of moving my arm in the numerous wrong directions remain. Also I'm getting back more and more range of motion in my shoulder. The therapist says I'm progressing very well. On the other hand, it's still a little embarrassing that my sister Peggy had to change my flat tire today while I just stood around and watched with my arm in the sling. As to the show: I'm eager to get back to producing it. Maybe I will be well enough to do a show next week, maybe. We'll see. I appreciate everyone's patience.

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You can learn more about The Future And You here, or here, or even here.

Or learn more about its host here, or here.