Jim Baen's Universe

What's New in The Future And You

Columns

August 2008

Written by Stephen Euin Cobb

Being master of ceremonies at LibertyCon, helping to found a new international organization, awarding trophies at a tournament, dancing at a rezday party, and becoming addicted to World of Warcraft. It's been another wild couple of months for your humble host. More details can be found farther below. But first, here is a summary of recent topics discussed on the show (May 14 - July 16) followed by a list of recent guests.

Recent Topics

Nanotech, biotech, artificial intelligence and the Singularity.

Why US kids want Japanese comics, and Japanese kids want American comics.

Standup comedy and self-promotion.

Aging and longevity.

The trends forcing commercial radio to change from what it once was into what it is yet to become.

Oil and the global energy crisis.

Solar cells and nuclear power.

That we will soon retire the space shuttle with nothing to replace it. Even now we have to ask the Russians to take our astronauts up to the international space station for us.

Composing music on the computer.

Wikipedia, Google and the Internet.

Why the Japanese all have better cell phone service and more bandwidth than Americans, so much so that watching live streaming internet TV on their cell phones has lost its novelty.

Anime, manga and illegal downloading.

Screenwriting and movie deals.

How cellular phone companies manage to charge $3 for only part of a song when the entire song can be bought on Amazon.com for under a dollar. And why this eight billion dollar ringtone business in the US is even worse in Europe where ringtones cost individual users about $30 per year, every year, because they're rented.

How the FCC has failed the American public in their assigned mission, and why they do not care that they have failed. Ways the American cell phone companies have perverted the rules that are supposed to govern their operations.

The sad fact that Police and Fire Department cellular systems all take a back seat to commercial cellular systems in terms of quality, bandwidth, priority and deployment. And which cities are taking serious steps to fix this problem.

The Order of Cosmic Engineers (a new international organization of which your host is a founding member).

How podcasting may replace both satellite radio and traditional radio when podcasts become commonly available in cars, because the drive-time commute is the key.

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.

If future nanotechnology allows everyone to have everything they want what kind of civilization will we have? Will people still work? Will most crime go away? What in our lives will remain the same?

The movies Speed Racer and Ironman.

Trends in colleges in general, and the increasing scholarly studies of science fiction and fantasy literature and media in particular. The enthusiasm students have for classes on speculative fiction, and how these studies augment the study of history.

Digital photography, PDAs, historical research for reenactments of frontier life, shopping on eBay, advancements in the medical field such as diabetes, identity theft, the government overstepping people's rights, and when owning a VIC-20 computer made you "Hot Snot."

Trends in the popular arts, including comics, Muppets, children’s book illustrations, commercial art and movie animation (both hand-drawn and CGI). Long term trends in annimation, especially CGI verses the traditional hand-drawn and hand-painted animation.

If the middle eastern dictators thumb their noses at China, the Chinese government—which unlike the USA does not set limits on how it treats its own people much less outsiders—might the Chinese invade the oil rich countries and take their oil by force?

The growing importance of cross marketing and tie-ins which seem to dominate marketing today, as well as limitations on art and stories because of the nervousness of the sponsors, and the impact that comic and anima conventions have upon young struggling artists.

How different public opinion about Global Warming is in Australia and New Zealand compared to in the US. There is an overwhelming acceptance of the concept, and crowds greet Al Gore with the admiration and enthusiasm usually reserved for rock stars.

How the internet has transformed comic book production teams into decentralized global networks and how software such as Flash and Photoshop have increased artist's speed. But that by eliminating all "original hand-drawn artwork" one also eliminates all artistic provenance.

Why traditional radio is dying, but can save itself if it does the right thing. And why satellite radio is not a threat to ground-based radio because ground-based is local and gives listeners a local connection to things like bad weather.

Why the internet has changed how art is commissioned and how projects are organized, produced, decentralized and the process sped up a great deal.

The changes sweeping the Asian world and especially Greater China. (Greater China is a term commonly used in business and economics to indicate not just mainland China, but also the regions that it governs, such as Hong Kong, as well as the regions it does not govern, such as Taiwan.)

The transformation of China from an anti-business communist economy to a pro-business free-market economy; the rise of Chinese consumerism; how internet access (including Google and Wikipedia) are eroding Chinese government censorship and forcing a new openness; the possibility of democracy taking root in China, and how a non-western democracy might be defined; the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.

Anecdotes about famous authors including: Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, L. Sprague de Camp, Mike Resnick, the late Jim Baen, Sarah A. Hoyt, Lois McMaster Bujold, Charles Sheffield, Catherine Asaro and Neil Gaiman.

Recent Guests

Kevin J. Anderson is a best selling science fiction and fantasy author, and co-author of the Dune prequels. His original works include the Saga of Seven Suns series and the Nebula Award-nominated Assemblers of Infinity. He has written novels for Star Wars, StarCraft, Titan A.E., and The X-Files.

Harry Turtledove is an award winning science fiction & fantasy author best known for his novels of alternate history, such as Guns of the South. He holds a Ph.D. from UCLA in Byzantine history.

David B. Coe is an award winning author of epic fantasy novels who holds a Ph.D. in environmental history.

Gary Jones is an actor, writer and standup comedian best known for playing the role of Sgt. Walter Harriman in Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis. He has also made guest appearances on such shows as Sliders, The Outer Limits, Andromeda and Dead Like Me.

Mike Resnick is an award winning science fiction & fantasy author and is the editor-in-chief of Jim Baen’s Universe Magazine.

Toni Weisskopf is the head of Baen Books, the world renowned publisher of SF&F hardbacks, paperbacks and electronic books.

Edmund R. Schubert is a SF&F writer and editor of Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show.

Catherine Asaro is a physicist, ballerina and award winning science fiction & fantasy author best known for her Saga of the Skolian Empire series.

Cheralyn Lambeth has worked on the Muppet Costumes for Sesame Street Live! worked with Jim Henson Productions on the TV series Dinosaur! and the film The Muppet Christmas Carol, and also worked as a prop maker for Paramount Production Services.

Professor Amy H. Sturgis, who holds a Ph.D. in Intellectual History, 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.

Mark Forman is an American businessman from Brooklyn New York, and has lived and worked in Taiwan for over twenty years. Host of the podcast Big in Asia, he studied Chinese language and culture at the University of Arizona, and during the last two decades has traveled a great deal in China as well as to many of its neighboring countries.

Steve Bennett is a manga Artist with three webcomics online and a career history that stretches back to working in an anime production studio in Japan as a teenager.

Richard H. Green worked at Walt Disney Studios on: Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Beauty and the Beast, and Rescuers Down Under.

Scott Stewart has been the principal artist for many projects including children’s books, comic books and coloring books which are marketing tie-ins to famous properties including Spiderman, Superman and The X-men.

S.L. Gallant has done a number of comic book tie-ins for movies from DreamWorks such as Madagascar, has done cartoon ads for Kraft Foods such as the Cool Aid Man and Cheesaurus Rex, and has also worked for Dark Horse Comics.

Paul Fischer is an Information Technology professional and one of podcasting’s pioneers. The team of Paul Fischer and Martha Holloway are widely known for their Balticon Podcast and the A.D.D. Cast.

Stoney Compton is the author of the novel Russian Amerika which takes place in 1987 but in an alternate history timeline in which Alaska was never purchased by the United States and is still owned and dominated by the Czar.

Kelly Lockhart has been a DJ in Key Largo Florida, Atlanta, Tallahassee and Chattanooga. He is a feature writer for The Chattanooga Pulse newspaper, is an award-winning advertising copywriter, is the lead guitarist for the popular 70’s style rock band Moccasin Bend, and for two decades worked in radio and television both on the air and behind the scenes.

Shannon Presley is an on-air personality and webmaster for the #1 radio station in south central Kentucky: The Beaver--WBVR. She is also a member of the Society for Creative Anachronism, is a Board Member for the Glasgow Highland Games, and helps with 18th century events at Mansker's Station.

Michael D'Ambrosio is author of the Fractured Time trilogy and now a screenwriter.

Mike Pederson is editor and publisher of Nth Degree Magazine and founder of the SF&F convention RavenCon.

Robert V. Aldrich is author of the anime-style novels Crossworld and Queendom.

Podcasting's Rich Sigfrit is a voice actor and producer of many popular podcasts.

Davey Beauchamps is a writer, raconteur and editor of the anthology Writers for Relief.

Gail Z. Martin is a fantasy author, blogger and video podcaster.

Neury Steinhour is host of the Artist Ally Podcast.

Warren Buff is chairman of the SF&F convention StellarCon.

Steve Cross is author of the novel Discarded Faces.

Tom Barisford is spokesperson for a writers group called Charlotte Writer's Night Out.

Chris Hensley is a self-described low-level flacky.

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Recent News

Master of Ceremonies

at LibertyCon

Due to a last minute cancellation of the person who was scheduled to be LibertyCon's Master of Ceremonies, I was asked to step in and fill that position. I was honored, of course, but also a bit nervous about accepting, since I'd never done this before and didn't want to do a crummy job.

The con's chairman, affectionately known as Uncle Timmy, assured me that I could handle it. As it turned out he and his team kept my duties light and I not only survived intact but had a wonderful time. Of course, I always have a wonderful time at LibertyCon. And from what I've seen in the six times I've been there, so does everyone else.

But possibly the greatest honor given to me at LibertyCon this year, was that for the first time ever a con provided me with a hotel room and covered my traveling expenses. This may sound like a small thing, but to me it's not. Partly of course it appeals to my love of thrift, but much more it feels like a solid and profound pat on the back for the work I've been trying to do through my show; it’s as meaningful a form of recognition as winning the Parsec Award.

And for this I must thank all the organizers of LibertyCon but especially: Uncle Timmy, Kerry Gilley, Brandy Spraker and Derick Spraker.

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The Order of Cosmic Engineers

I have accepted an invitation to become a founding member of a new international organization called the Order of Cosmic Engineers. I am honored that they invited me, and proud to be counted among their founders.

Their vision for the idealized future of humanity is very much like my own. It is one of optimism and unlimited possibility. Unlimited because they anticipate deep into the future. Farther than I have ever attempted to look with a hope of meaningful accuracy.

I believe that the Order of Cosmic Engineers can become, in the years and decades ahead, a transformative force for good in this Universe.

Some of the questions I asked of Catherine Asaro when I interview her for the June 25, 2008 episode are foundational to the Order's vision of the future. I was pleased, and maybe a little surprised, to discover that her vision of the deep future was a close match to the one held by the Order, and by me.

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This is how I accepted the invitation to join the Order:

Dear Giulio,

Thank you for this invitation. I would be honored to join the Order of

Cosmic Engineers. I have been convinced for decades that we will eventually

learn enough about the underlying structure of our physical universe that we

will be able to modify it as well as make new ones with physical laws which

are more to our liking. And once given the ability, we will do both.

But I suspect that our quaint natural universe will be left mostly as it is,

like a nature preserve, and the greatest and most clever modifications will

be reserved for the many universes that we make. Some of our newly made

universes will have additional dimensions so we can build and enjoy and

learn from things that can not exist in only three dimensions of space. Our

first four dimensional universe will be a fascinating place, but once we

learn to think and move and build in four-space we will want five, and then

six, and eventually work our way up through ten, then a hundred, then a

thousand, then a million. There will be no end to this. I see the ultimate

fate of humanity as spreading slowly through a succession of created

universes of ever increasing dimensionality, and that in this way we will

remain forever "upwardly mobile."

Thanks.

Steve

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Addicted to World of Warcraft

On June 11, 2008 with the help and guidance of my friend Sophrosyne Stenvaag I entered the virtual reality universe known as World of Warcraft. It was my intention to familiarize myself with the world enough to attend a meeting in Silvermoon City, but in the process of learning my way around I quickly became hooked.

Generally, I actively avoid video games because they devour time. If I were five people I wouldn't have enough time to do all the projects I want to do. The last game I let get a hold on me was Duke Nukem Two in the early nighties. It took me over thirty hours to defeat all its levels. Thirty hours is not going to be enough for WoW. There are over 2000 quests, and each one typically takes one to three hours to complete.

It's a brilliantly written and produced game. With a little luck maybe I'll burnout on it.

If you happen to be in there feel free to look me up. I'm an Orc Shaman named Boccryotank. As of July 20, I'm at level 23.

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Death Stacks Tournament

The 2008 Death Stacks tournament (a strategy board game invented by your host) was held on Saturday, June 31 2008 at the SF&F convention ConCarolinas in Charlotte NC. First prize was $250. The first place trophy went to Chris Jarrett, 2nd Place to Eric Lowman, and 3rd Place to Trey Krieger.

For those interested in getting ready for next year's tournament, an online version is available for practice play, and an even tougher to beat version is available for download. Both of these award-winning versions of the game are free and were written by freegoldbar.

You can find links to them in the Death Stacks article in Wikipedia.

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Happy Rezday to Argent Bury

Rezday is like a birthday, only it's the day you first materialized inside second life.

On June 7, 2008 some of the Extropians threw Argent Bury a rezday party. I danced with her and took a few photos. She was dressed as a flapper, but no flapper ever filled out a dress like that. As we danced she told me she was one year old. I told her she didn't look a day over half.

You can see photos of the party on my Flickr page.

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An Essay on World of Warcraft

Having played World of Warcraft for over a month, and having achieved level 23 through the accumulation of experience and weapons and armor and magic spells, I can't help but notice that each of these accumulations is an augmentation. Being a transhumanist this is a fundamental concept to me. It strikes directly to the desires of my heart. All my life in the real world I have either sought or longed for augmentation of my natural physical form.

Thus on a fundamental level the game is seductive to me. But I would like to propose the creation of another game. One designed to our future rather than a fictionalization of our barbarian past. A game that is similar in play, but based on the aspirations of transhumanists and the ideals of transhumanist philosophy. A game in which augmentation is similarly central to one's progress and success, but instead of being based upon ancient magic is based upon sciences and technologies only glimpsed and hinted at in the literature of today.

In addition to being a fun and perhaps profitable game, this is a game that could forward the widespread acceptance—perhaps even approval—of transhumanism within the popular culture. Thus is revealed my true goal for this game: to win the hearts and minds of humanity for the greater good of transhumanism; and by this, the greater good of humanity as a whole.

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RFID Dangers in Hospitals

A frightening new study published on June 25, 2008 in the Journal of the American Medical Association has shown that the wireless systems used by many hospitals to keep track of medical equipment can cause potentially deadly breakdowns in lifesaving devices such as breathing and dialysis machines.

The problem devices were simple RFID systems. Researchers in Amsterdam concluded that electromagnetic interference from RFID systems can cause unintended changes in equipment functioning.

Researchers detected such changes in 34 out of 123 tests of 41 different medical devices. Of those 34 incidents, 22 were "hazardous," including total switch-offs and restarts of mechanical ventilators; complete stopping of syringe pumps and renal replacement devices and interruption of external pacemakers. In conducting the tests, researchers randomly used both passive and active RFID systems.

Strangely, researchers discovered it was the passive tags, which don't have internal power and must be activated by readers that led to 63 percent of total incidents and 41 percent of the hazardous events. Active tags, which include battery power and don't require activation, don't seem to be as likely to affect other systems

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Soccer Playing Nanobots

The skill, dexterity, and raw athleticism of soccer players make them an excellent model to test the prowess of robots in RoboCup, an annual robot-soccer competition sponsored by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The game has shrunk to nano-scale levels, as this year’s RoboCup, open to the public, features the second annual nanosoccer games.

In an arena the size of a microchip, with "television" coverage from optical microscopes, three student teams will vie in such soccer drills as the two-millimeter dash, a slalom race between polymer posts, and nanoball-handling exercises. The competitors are from Carnegie Mellon University and the U.S. Naval Academy in the United States and the University of Waterloo in Canada.

The goal of the competition is to foster innovation in artificial intelligence and intelligent robotics. RoboCup will be held May 25 to 27 at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. An upcoming U.S. Open nanosoccer competition will be a precursor to the first official Nanogram League nanosoccer competition at the 2009 RoboCup in Austria.

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Listener Feedback

Barbara Jones wrote:

Hi,

I enjoyed your sessions at LibertyCon and esp. that you kept the sessions on topic and focused on the speakers. I thought you did a great job drawing Harry Turtledove out.

When you asked the podcast panel about today's children reading or not reading, I thought of this viral youtube video (link below) that's probably been watched by every college faculty member in the U.S. Resolution is low, but it's quite interesting. It's 4 minutes and 44 seconds. You may have seen it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o

Best wishes,

Barbara Jones

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I wrote back:

Barbara,

Thank you for writing. Harry Turtledove was great to work with.

And thank you for the video link. I had not seen it. I enjoyed it and will send the link to a few others. By not pretending to offer any answers, it was able to point out and emphasize a lot of important questionable practices and out-right problems that exist within our current education system.

Thanks again.

Steve

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Catherine Asaro wrote:

Hi, Steve.

The interview sounds great! I appreciate your doing such a dynamite job. You're a great interviewer. :-)

One correction: I have 23 books published. (It's 26 if you count the shorter books, which are really just long novellas.)

Best regards,

Catherine Asaro

http://www.catherineasaro.net

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I wrote back:

Oops! Sorry. I'll change it on the blog page. And mention the correction in the next episode.

Thanks.

Steve

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Bryan Spellman wrote:

I love "The Future And You." But I have a minor complaint. When I first started listening you had great guests talking about the future and it's possibilities. Now when I listen recently it has been mostly Con Interviews of authors and artists selling their wares. While I appreciate and actually have read many of your guests I really miss the old interviews when it was about the future and you. Recently it has been good interviews but ones I could get at any SciFi/Fantasy podcast. You would ask about the future as they see it but it did not have the meat I loved when you interview futurists, scientists and those ilk.

Please do not take it the wrong way. I would listen to you every week if it was just you reading from your latest book but please bring back just a little bit of the original focus. Thank you so much for putting The Future and You out there! Keep up the great work.

Respectfully yours,

Bryan V Spellman

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I wrote back:

Brian,

Thanks for writing, and thanks for all the nice compliments about the show. I'm glad you enjoy the show, and—you can laugh—but also glad to hear that you (and presumably other listeners too) want it to remain true to its intended focus. Please rest assured that this is not a new focus that the show will be following or drifting to over the long haul. This is just my way of paying back the cons which have been so good to me and so beneficial to my show. Without these cons and the people I've met at them the show would not exist. It was at cons that I learned what a podcast was, how to podcast, and was even encouraged to try my hand at podcasting by a trio who have gone on to become heavyweights within podcasting: Tee Morris (coauthor of Podcasting for Dummies), Mur Lafferty (who has many podcasts including I Should be Writing) and of course Podcasting's Rich Sigfrit. In addition to nurturing the creation of my show, cons have been a great source of my more famous and/or fascinating guests.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is that you are right. The show should remain focused on the future. And it will. However about three or four shows out of the fifty-two per year will also focus on the cons I attend. I owe them big-time. And I pay my debts.

I would like to emphasize that I've been making a strong effort in the last six months to get interviews with people who are fully focused on the future, rather than as a side interest because they happen to write fiction which is set in the future. I will continue to interview SF&F authors, but this is a direction I've been eager to move in and I have made many new contacts this year which are bringing this goal to fruition. You have heard some of them already such as George Dvorsky, Giulio Prisco, Michael Anissimov and Phillipe Van Nedervelde. Many more are on the way.

I am also trying to get people who attempt to look deeper into the future than just the next handful of decades. That's a clumsy time period to look at from the vantage point of our current time period, but I think am beginning to find them.

This is a much longer response than I had intended but the reason I've made it so detailed is that I feel this is a concern that many listeners probably have, and so I figured I should address this to all of them by reading it into the show.

Thanks again for writing.

All the best.

Steve

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Brian then wrote back:

Stephen,

Boy do I understand owing someone. And I actually enjoy the interviews (Love Mur by the way, Playing For Keeps was fantastic and I hope she revisits that universe again) and continue to listen no matter what you put out there!

Thank you for the response and I am glad to hear you will be maintaining a nice mix of topics for us. Hope to meet you in Second Life or WoW someday!

Keep on podcasting!

Bryan Spellman

PS A topic suggestion. I love baseball, it is my other passion outside of reading. I would enjoy a show that addresses sports in the near/distant future. One hot topic in some circles is the amputee runner who is using a prosthesis to compete in 'normal' events, not 'special' events. I am enjoying the discussion as it is a focus on other than performance enhancing drugs and the future of sports. Also the recent trial of the laser grid system in baseball for calling balls and strikes. Interesting stuff......

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Randal L. Schwartz wrote:

I recently got a kindle. didn't realize how much of Baen.com is free for the kindle, and not only that, but how much of Baen is cheaper than the corresponding Amazon sale. very cool.

- Randal L. Schwartz - Stonehenge Consulting Services, Inc.

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BTW: The free stuff Randal was talking about is located in the Baen Free Library and is available to anyone who would like if for free.

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A second life resident named DanTheMan Burbclave wrote:

Hey Boc, love the show. It's getting even better and better, your guests lately have been very good.

(This is going to be out of left field, but that's kind of how I like to think) Have you ever thought about interviewing a mormon official? It's always struck me that any version of the future +50 years from now would have to include them... a lot of them. Affluence and # of children are inversely related, except for mormons. Given that fact, and assuming affulence will remain in an uptrend, their population will always increase relative to other afflent groups. This will make them a dominent force in the future... what would that look like? (rhetorical) Interesting, huh?

Anyway, you obviously know how to run your show, please just take this as a suggestion, since I'm always surprised when futurists never bring this fact up - in fact, I've never heard it mentioned anywhere. (This is all assuming non-singularity, which I believe will likely happen)... anyway, that's my little suggestion.

thx

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Vernon Avaritt III wrote:

I really loved your book Bones Burnt Black maybe it'll be a movie someday. I also like your website The Future and You. Live long and prosper.

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John Anthony Dean Retires

My friend and coworker of seven years retired on June 5, 2008. I'm happy for him, but I'm also a little bit sad.

John Dean to most of his coworkers. Tony to his friends and family.

He's lived an eventful life so far: five purple hearts in Viet Nam; his daughter a nurse, his son a mayor, his wife a nutritionist. Seven years, we were together. I'm the oldest of five kids, and have never had an older sibling, but during our time together I've come to look to Tony as an older brother.

So, Tony, if you're reading this, It's hard to see you go, but you've worked hard enough and long enough; It's time to relax and enjoy yourself full-time.

Take good care of yourself.

I love you, man.

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Learn More

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

Or learn more about its host here or here.

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