Once upon a time I had no TV so I listened to the radio instead. That is is when I found this American Life, A.K.A. my favorite radio show. The episode was "Americans In Paris." And I have been hooked ever since. Ira Glass and his team have given the world some of the most inspiring and fascinating  stories. I tell their stories to other people all the time.

The world is such a fascinating place full of interesting people and TAL goes after it with zeal and compassion. I am not doing it justice. Just go check it out. If you get the chance to see it live, do it!

Some favorite episodes include, but not limited to:
~Fiasco
~10 Commandments
~Superpowers
~Secret Worlds
~24 Hours at the Golden Apple
~Three Kinds of Deception
~Poultry Slam (all of them)

A close runner up, but only because it's newer, is Radiolab.
Radiolab is the first place I learned about the field of science called Emergence. Even you don't like science you will like this show. The hosts Jad and Robert are a lot of fun to listen to and the people that talk to are amazing.

Some favorite episodes include, but not limited to:
~Laughter
~Unraveling Ravel
~Color
~Yellow Fluff and Other Curious Encounters
~Apocalyptical - Live from the Paramount in Seattle

Click on the pictures to be taken to their websites and start exploring.

It is an undisputed fact to say Isaac Asimov is astounding and/or amazing but after re-reading some of his essay’s its worth stating for the record again. Isaac Asimov is always looking to humanity’s bright future. He acknowledges war, overpopulation, and pollution as potential dangers to our continuance but his writing always points to the best we can offer in the face of these obstacles. 

In 1977 he wrote: “In any civilization with computer science so advanced as to make teaching machines possible, there surely will be thoroughly centralized central libraries. Such libraries may even be interconnected into a single planetary library... Each machine would be plugged into this planetary library and each could have at its disposal any book, periodical, document, recording, or video encoded there” -From The New Teachers

In this essay Asimov is imaging what education in the future will look like. Each person will learn what they want and at their own pace. The traditional class room as we know will be a thing of the past. This is a trend of course but the above quote sounds a lot like Google.

1989, Future Fantastic. “In the 21st century we will see a society in which one third of the population will entertain the other two thirds.” It might not be two thirds but with the proliferation of Podcasts and You Tube channels I would say it’s not that far off.

Same essay. “There will be no bar to travel. You can still be a tourist or visit your friends in person by closed circuit television.” Not exactly, but close enough. Can we say Skype, Google hangout, GoToMeeting, etc to see people we could not otherwise afford to.

This one is interesting. “...the technochildren of tomorrow will be accustomed to living in a decentralized world, to reaching out in a variety of ways from their homes—to do what needs doing. At one and the same time, they will feel both entirely isolated and in total contact.”

This is exactly what is happening. While Asimov is a perpetual optimist the simultaneous isolated connectivity is not having the positive impact I think he imagined. I have seen a few articles and I know there a couple books on the subject. Being connected online has not done anything to make most people feel MORE connected, only more alone. A person may have 2,000 friends on their social networks but still experience profound loneliness. It is definitely a modern paradox that we have yet to figure out how to deal with.

This is just what I read today. If I get any more good ones I will tweet them.

People sometimes want to know where I got my idea for the Elbie. It’s simple really. I wanted a totally non-carbon based life form. Pure energy. And I mean pure. When I tell people this they say, “What about the Drej from Titan A.E.?” While the Drej display a level of fluidity they still have bodies and need machines. While the movie never goes into it, they definitely have a sense of government and culture, otherwise they couldn’t be as organized as they are. Don’t get me wrong, I like the Drej, but pure energy they are not.

Seeing in how these aliens (soon to be Elbie) are made of pure energy, energy has rules. The most famous of all is: Energy can be neither created nor destroyed. I think this familiar mantra is what gave me the idea of Elbie transferability. First thing I did; took out a piece of paper and wrote down what those rules were.

With about ten of these rules, I took my first run at this world in 2001. After thirty or so versions I have got it pretty refined now how the Elbie work and what they are like. Then again, with the second draft of book two about to be wrapped up, I am discovering new ways to experience Elbie.

A lot of the Elbie attributes and how they operate in our world are written out on the DPA website and Twitter feed. I had one friend ask if we could send people into space to harvest more Elbie for commercial purposes. I told him I didn't see why not, but since we can barely break orbit, that story will have to wait. If you have questions about Elbie and how they work send me an e-mail or Tweet me.

I have often been disappointed that pictures I take aren’t as amazing as I remember at the time I took the photograph. This could be because of the quality of my camera and/or my imagination remembering the image more vividly than it actually was. Probably a little of both.

Naturally I have wondered that if the purple I see, is the same purple you see when we are looking at the same flower. Obviously we can both agree that the flower is purple, but the complexity of something like the eye and the brain working in tandem to create an image in my mind makes me think that there has to be variation from person to person on the hue, tone, and quality of color of the same flower. Turns out I am not the only person to contemplate this.

Radiolab (a.k.a. my 2nd favorite radio show) did a whole episode on color. They talk about that very thing. Is color something created by our perception and interpreted by our brains or is it something independent and outside of us? Turns out it’s both.

Fun Facts:
    dogs – 2 cones
    humans – 3 cones
    butterflies – 5-6 cones
    mantis shrimp – 16 cones

I really wish I could see what the mantis shrimp sees, at least for a few minutes.

They also discuss the evolution of color through literature starting with the Odyssey.  It’s freaking cool. But I won’t say any more, you have to check it for yourself. LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE here. You're welcome.

I’ve noticed that often after kids wake they sort of have this vacant stare. I’m talking about toddlers, mostly 2-5 years old. They don’t respond to you. They just rub their head and blink at you. Sure some adults are like that too, but I think kids are like that because they are trying to figure out where they are.

When you’re a kid you wake up in a different place than where you went to sleep all the time. That almost never happens as an adult and if it does it’s not a good thing. If you wake up in a different place than you were when you went to sleep it probably means you’re in the hospital, jail, or you were so out of if they you have memory loss. Think how disorienting that would be.

I don’t know a thing about cognitive development in children but I’m guessing they haven’t made the connection of traveling in a car with arriving at a new location, they can’t make that leap yet, so it must seem like magic to them. They were at home and now they are at the store, whoa.

Just saying.

I was watching the Italian Job the other day and it reminded me if another great movie that is also set in Venice. Are you ready for it?  If you say League of Extraordinary Gentleman we can no longer be friends.

Back when you could still wander around the local Blockbuster Video Store, I saw this sitting on the shelf and I was powerless to resist. There are so many bad movies in the world and this one of the best. If you really love a good bad movie, Sharks in Venice has to be on your must watch list.

I have been watching Mystery Science Theater since it first appeared on Comedy Central so suffice it to say that I'm a sucker for a good bad movie. In the spirit of truly terrible films that involve sharks, I found another real gem under the same circumstances, in a Blockbuster.

A strong second in this category has to be Hammerhead. IMDB.com has this to say: “A scientist tries to save his son from cancer but his experiments turn him into a shark-man instead. A group of people from a pharmaceutical corporation are sent to the mad doctor's island to investigate his activities.”

Besides its horrendous premise, Hammerhead comes with something for all you romantics in the audience. Long lost love, destined, possibly doomed, to be reunited with her once a man of a man boyfriend who is now a shark of a man (or is is man of a shark?) ex-lover.

When I did a Google image search for this one, and I recommend that you do the same, the images that filled my screen made me laugh so hard my roommates emerged from their rooms to see what all the noise was about. I don’t think it’s a “total terror” but is most definitely a total scream.

Okay, just one more. This one was recommended to be me by the Netflix algorithm. (As if they know me from my previous selections. Those silly equations don't know anything.)

It is everything you fear and hope it to be, including the tender love scene.

It is total coincidence that all three of these movies have sea creatures in them. As I said at the start, I was watching an actual good movie and there are no monsters in that one. But there you have it folks, the power of synaptic misfiring and association.

Recently I watched Total Recall. The original one. With the Govenator. Circa 1990. And they have video phones in the movie. Which made me remember thinking, at the time, when I still had to hand write my reports for school, “That would be so cool.”

Yesterday I Skyped with a friend in another state for two hours without a thought. How did video phoning sneak up on us like that? Did anyone even notice? According to Uber-facts.com, “Today's average smartphone has more computing power than the first space shuttle ever produced.” I don’t know if that’s true but it’s got to be close to true.

Think about it.

I went into Borders (no more) looking for a book on swarm intelligence. The book jockey I talked to lead me to The Singularity Is Near. The book has nearly nothing about swarm intelligence but it is a science-fiction writer’s gold mine.

There is a chapter dedicated to genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics. In it he addresses the idea of self-replicating robots and the fear that is a favorite of science fiction, the nanobot hoard. We are assured that precautions would be put in place to keep the human race from being overwhelmed by clouds of nanabots (fogglet) by programming the little suckers to replicate a finite number of times. If the thought has crossed your mind that you could be disassembled by a horde they would be programmed to break down only specific molecules and not just whatever they came across. He concludes with “…this approach should be reasonably effective against inadvertent dangers, although it could be circumvented by a determined and knowledgeable adversary. Page 229”

Damn you determined and knowledgeable adversaries of the world. Twisting the good ideas of mankind to your own evil ends. A determined and knowledgeable adversary. I thought it was the funniest idea. You never have to worry about the stupid and unmotivated getting in your way. I think determination is a primary requirement if you plan on being a part of the council of evil or the Legion of Doom.

Anyways, this book is a science fiction writer’s gold mine, lots of great leaping off points. Pick one and see what happens, I bet it will be pretty cool. Mr. Kurzweil seems to have a belief in mankind’s inherent goodness (something I’m not so sure about.) The future is certainly bright with The Singularity on the horizon.