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just mike
Ep. 307 – Just Say No to 3D Printing!
May 16th
TOPIC: Dave’s in Europe, and as you know when Sparky’s away Jay Garmon and I take the opportunity to go whole-geek on your ears! This week we’re talking about signing up for a one-way ticket to Mars, Commander Riker’s bizarre seating methods in TNG, and about a dozen other things (other than the one thing I promised we’d discuss of course … 3D printing! Maybe next time?). Jay delivers a fantastic geek trivia question as always:
Who was the only guest star who played themselves on Star Trek?
Only time for one coolsite of the week this week, but it is a lot of fun -
- GigWalk - Hire or become part of a smartphone army! Very interesting idea – People can earn money doing jobs for businesses through the Gigwalk mobile app, and businesses can hire people instantly!
We finish it the show off with “Rich Girls” by The Virgins!
Ep. 304 – Conglomeration Conflagration!
Apr 11th
TOPIC: No, Conglomeration attendees were not responsible for the riots in Louisville, though Jay Garmon‘s rundown of the annual Sci-Fi and table gaming convention may get you heated up! You’ll wish you were there … and not only that but Jay gives us another great geek trivia question:
How many times did Roger Ebert select a Science Fiction film as one of the year’s best?
We also provide you a few extra coolsites of the week this week -
- Erin Hulin Blog - A friend’s blog, detailing her struggles with MS and life. Support her fight, and don’t forget to look into ways that you can help with research, money and time!
- Incompetech - Free online graph paper, just download and print!
- PrintFreeGraphPaper.com – Free online graph paper, and this one you can define your own!
- AnythingAfter App – For iOS or Android, will tell you if there’s a reason to stick around after the credits!
- Brogue – Remember the text character “graphic” adventure game Rogue? This is just like it, but different!
After all is said and done, we finish it off with “Royals”. Come back in two weeks for our next show!
Ep. 296 – Singularity Rising Author James Miller
Jan 17th
TOPIC: The coming AI singularity – that point when the growth of non-human intelligence surpasses our ability to control (even understand it) is coming. Do you know how it will affect you, and what you can do about it? This week we have a fantastic conversation with author James Miller about his new book Singularity Rising … tune in to find out if you should be excited, afraid, or both!
Jay Garmon hits us up with this great question:
What was the Boeing 787 “Dreamliner” technology originally intended for?
No coolsites of the week (though you should check out http://singularityrising.com for more info Professor Miller’s fantastic book), but we end with a great song, Robert Smith and Crystal Castles with “Not In Love”.
Ep. 289 – Fantasy Football Fail!
Nov 19th
TOPIC: It’s Sunday, noon. The big game is just about to kick off and all you need to do to guarantee a win in your fantasy football league is to swap that defense. What do you see as you log in to make the change? 404 website fail! If you were using Yahoo! this weekend to get your fantasy on, this is literally what happened to you – and Mike knows your pain! We also get into a little General Betrayus discussion, and our good friend Jay Garmon spends probably far more time than he expected on-air chatting and getting into detailed info about this and more – plus asks this brain bender for the week:
Why did Nolan Bushnell really have Atari develop the Pong video game?
And we finally get a chance for a few coolsites of the week:
- NaNoWriMo – National Novel Writing Month! Get help, insight, advice and direction for writing your first novel right here!
- Stykz – Make your own stick figure animations for free! Download the software and have at it … no strings attached.
- Stamen Maps – Make your plain Jane Google maps look artistic and cool!
- EBM First – Great place to get started on finding out where to spend your health dollars. Evidence-Based Medicine First will disabuse you of any illusions you might have concerning your “healthcare” provider, and give you ammo to fight against quackery everywhere!
We end up with the podcast only song “Gravity” by The Whitest Boy Alive. Enjoy!
Ep. 288 – Alexandre Montagu on Intellectual Property
Nov 14th
Alexandre Montagu Intellectual Property: Money and Power in a New Era Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (87)
TOPIC: Alexandre Montagu, founder of MontaguLaw – a leading intellectual property law firm – joins us to talk about all things IP! Did you know that the color red can be considered intellectual property, and sued over? We don’t stick with fashion, but have a very interesting and in-depth discussion about what IP is and how it affects you and the technologies you use every day. We even have time to freewheel some ideas on just exactly what is wrong with IP law today!
We also have the pleasure of Jay Garmon coming on air via the wonders of wireless to answer last week’s question and provide this nugget for next week:
What was the training technique developed specifically for use in Gemini 12 (still in use today) and what mission objective was it used for?
Once again we get so involved in our discussion there just isn’t time for any coolsites, but you should definitely follow the links here to get more info about the book Intellectual Property: Money and Power in a New Era, and if you’ve got any other legal questions go to MontaguLaw directly!
We end the show with a special podcast only song of the week, an ode to everyone who is still arguing about the election … just listen and you’ll understand 
Ep. 287 – Michael Miller Talks Windows 8
Nov 8th
TOPIC: Michael Miller, prolific author, musician and tech expert returns to the show to give us his opinion on the new Windows 8, and whether you should be excited, wary, or just bored! If you’re thinking of getting a new windows device in the near future, this is an episode you won’t want to miss! We also get to hear a bit about some of Michael’s new projects such as “Easy Facebook” which was just released through Que.
Jay Garmon joins us for a fun discussion about business continuity, Shoretel Sky failings, disaster recovery, your data and Hurricane Sandy as well as this brain “twister” (bad pun fully intended):
For what legal reason do the elections occur on the first Tuesday after the first Monday of November?
No time for coolsites this week, but you should go check out the MoleHillGroup website and see what else the prolific Mr. Miller has been up to!
We end with a real interesting hybrid of a song called “Sari” by Nellie McKay.
Ep. 286 – Dyson Awards and Innovation with Rob Green!
Oct 31st
TOPIC: After a few minutes of talk about the AWS outage and how our states and brick-and-mortars are allowing our private data to get loose (again), we bring on Rob Green from Dyson Corporation to talk about the recent Dyson Awards finalists, innovation in general, and just exactly how long it took them to build that crazy bladeless fan! Two of the finalists this year are local from Northwestern University, so tune in and support their efforts!
We missed Jay Garmon, which allowed us time for one coolsite of the week:
- Vaccine Location Finder – Not sure where to go to get your flu vaccine this year? Enter your zip and find a place nearby! Chances are your vaccine is covered or at very low cost, so what’s your excuse?
I sign us off with the song of the week “Le Goudron” by YACHT. You don’t have to understand it to move to it!
Ep. 284 – Lions and Tigers and Asteroids, Oh My!
Oct 19th
TOPIC: In addition to our usual junk, Jay Garmon spends some time scaring the living bejeezus out of us we discuss the most recent “near miss” on the asteroid front (and that’s only AFTER we spend some time on the dangers of amusement park rides)!
Jay also give us this space-related brain bender:
What part of the shuttle Endeavour are still in use, even today?
- Flow – Fun, free, mesmerizing undersea flash game. Enjoy!
- Word Games (CNN) – Great collection of word games for your smartphone you may not have heard of before!
- Speccy – Get all the specs on your machine in a quick, easy to manage way. Put it on a flash drive and check out that laptop you’re thinking of buying!
- OpenLibrary – Just what it sounds like, an easy to access collection of over 1 million free ebooks, and many paid books you can borrow too!
Staying in that jazzy mood, we’ve got Gin Wigmore with “Hey, Ho” to finish things off!
Ep. 283 – Romance talk with Deputy Chief Inspector Greg Campbell
Oct 9th
TOPIC: Believe it! No, TechTalk is not going the way of TMZ or TLC, and we don’t get into the latest celebrity tiff … what we do get is a ton of great information and fun conversation with Greg Campbell, whose office is responsible for investigating mail crime! It turns out that the United States Postal Inspection Service is intimately involved in romance scams, grandparent scams, and more. Anything that results in a piece of mail being sent, Greg finds out about it. I trust him when he says he has a unique set of skills, developed over a lifetime of service …
Not only do you get a great interview, but we also have time for just a few cool sites of the week:
- Postal Inspectors Office – Do you want more information about what we discussed on-air? Have you been a victim of an Internet scam? Here’s where you can get more info and submit a request for assistance!
- Stop ZombieMouth – PopCap Games is giving away free Plants vs. Zombies games for Halloween this year! Save your teeth at the same time you save the plants!
“I Wish I Could Go Traveling Again” by Stacey Kent is the cool song of the week!
Ep. 282 – Michael Miller, Maps and Music!
Oct 5th
TOPIC: That’s right, Michael Miller joins us this week (at least for a while) to talk about music, books, publishing through Molehill group, using Pinterest and more!
Before he joins us, we also get a chance to cover a ton of news and updates like how Apple’s new maps app works (or doesn’t), alternatives you can use today like Waze, and the prediction that by 2040 you won’t need to worry about any of it – including having a drivers license because of the advent of autonomous cars!
We lose Mike a little earlier than we wanted to (though he promised to come back again soon), but that gives us a little extra time for the coolsites of the week:
- AdoMatic – Get your own presidential TV commercial! Not enough libelous slander, but otherwise a lot of fun!
- RLVision – Export office and PDF images quickly and easily! (shareware)
And “The Kids Were Wrong” by Memory House is the song of the week!
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