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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. 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. 266 – Who’s #1?
Apr 25th
TOPIC: No, I’m not trying to beg for praise – that’s the title of the fascinating new book that authors Carl Meyer and Amy Langville have written … and we have a great time talking to them about it today! We cover some of the more interesting ways that math, sports, ratings and rankings all get together – it may not help you make your first million in Vegas, but then again, it won’t hurt!
Rusty Silber, from WRLR’s own Sports Corner joins us to add a much-needed sense of balance and insight.
There’s a few news stories in the beginning and then Jay Garmon also jumps in for a quick Geek Trivia fix:
What was the first linewide change of the Coca Cola formula in 1935 – and why was it performed?
We have too much fun talking with Amy and Carl this week, so the coolsites are little slim:
- Who’s #1 – You can buy it on Amazon today, either hard copy or e-reader.
- Carl Meyer’s Web Page
- Amy Langville’s Web Page
The podcast only song of the week is “Pickpocket” by Fujiya & Miyagi.
Ep. 230 – Transhuman Much?
May 23rd
TOPIC: Just Mike this week, but in addition to all his regular junk he manages to squeeze in a fascinating interview with Braden Allenby and David Sarewitz, authors of the book “The Techno-Human Condition.”
Jay Garmon finally joins us again and regains our trust with some awesome geek trivia (as usual)!
Why will the final shuttle mission in July have only 4 crew members?
We have such a great conversation we don’t even have time for coolsites of the week! We do however get in a great podcast only song “Sadie Hawkin’s Day” by Yip Deceiver.
Ep. 194 – Tom Standage and The Economist’s Technology Quarterly
Jun 19th
TOPIC: The title of this one pretty much says it all, but doesn’t give you a hint at what an awesome guest Tom was! We don’t have nearly the time needed to get into all the cool stories from the Economist’s special Technology Quarterly insert (though we give it that old college try), but Tom’s promised to come back next quarter and fill us in again!
Jay Garmon does his usual great job at keeping us on our geek trivia toes, asking this question:
Besides our moon, what are the only 3 other non-planets that humans have landed a spaceprobe on?
Because of the brilliant discussion with Tom, we cut short the ‘cool sites of the week’ this week and keep it to only a couple, related to the show:
- Economist Technology Quarterly – Find out what Tom and I missed by reading it online!
- Tom Standage.com – Tom’s not only the business affairs editor for the UK division of the Economist, but has a lot of great stuff that you won’t find anywhere else but going straight to the source!
The podcast only song of the week this week is Kriss Kross by the Guillemots!
Ep. 159 – URLesque’s Ban on Cats Day!
Sep 8th
TOPIC: This week we talk to Stephen Lentz, editor-in-chief for the most excellent website URLesque.com and find out why they hate cats so much (they don’t, really!). Find out why they’re doing their best to give ‘em a break this Wednesday 9/9/09 and coordinating a web-wide No Cats Day! We throw our hat in the ring and pledge to post no blogs about cats this Wednesday ourselves. We’ve got Jay Garmon’s Geek Trivia on and the usual junk, including a great coolsite of the week:
- Virtual Gumshoe – Looking to find out some information on a prospective employee, contractor, boyfriend or boss? Look no further, Virtual Gumshoe will connect you with all the best free sites on the web that offer public records, civil and court case info, arrest data and more! And of course, most of this is verified 100% free!
We don’t have a podcast only song this week, because we got a radio edit version of Shock Horror by The View so everyone can enjoy! Check it out and tune in next week too!
Ep. 154 – Cutting Edge Casio Camera Tech
Jul 14th
TOPIC: Jay Garmon is back this week as we actually remember the right number to call him on, and give Customer Jones her chance to break bad on the undisputed master of Geek Trivia (all in fun naturally)!
Plus, we bring on Darin Pepple from Casio corporation to talk about the newest innovations and changes in digital picture taking technology, particularly the new Exilim FC-100 model that brings high speed options to new level. Haven’t heard much about what Casio is doing with imaging tech? Then you will surely want to tune in and find out about double-processors, CCM tech, slow-mo and high-speed photography options as Casio lays it out with cutting edge photography and video that fits in your pocket!
Check back here in the next week or so to get our full review of the newest Casio camera line – we got our hands on the FC100 for a few weeks and were very impressed!
The cool site of the week this week was sooo cool, we only needed one:
- Wubi – A free and easy way to set up your windows machine to dual-boot into Ubuntu. Why you may ask? Well, yours truly boots his laptop into Linux nearly every time I’m traveling; who wants to wait 8 minutes for an XP desktop to come up when all I really want to do is check my Gmail account and do a little surfing? With Ubuntu I’m up in less than 3 minutes, and Wubi makes setting this up a breeze, even for our non-tech listeners!
The podcast only song of the week is “Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh” by Say Hi! And don’t listen to Dave, this song is clean as a whistle and suitable for all ages! 
Episode 146 – Speed it Up! with Mike Miller
May 7th
TOPIC: Author and musician Mike Miller comes back to the show to talk to us about making the most out of that ‘dying’ PC. If you’re debating whether you should upgrade to a newer piece of equipment or if it’s possible to squeeze some more useful life out of what you’ve got, you’ll want to listen in this week! His tips and insight are also good in general, and you’ll be sure to pick up something of value even if you don’t get his highly recommended book Speed it Up! A Non-Technical Guide for Speeding Up Slow Computers
We also spend a lot of time with our good friend Jay “Geek Trivia” Garmon, who informs us that WRLR now has an exclusive lock on the Geek Trivia output from Louisville!
In addition to all of that excitement, we’ve got our cool sites of the week:
- Panda Cloud Antivirus – Free, light, outstanding quality? Wow, how better to sum up what we look for in a cool site of the week! Get your hands on this necessary piece of software and protect your computer today …
- Windows Live SkyDrive – More very cool microsoft cloud stuff, this gives you 25GB of free online space. That’s right, that’s a capital G for giga and a lower-case f for free! You’ll need an office live account, but guess what? Those are free too!
Our podcast only song of the week this week is Kinky’s remake of Mexican Radio. And don’t forget to check out Mike Miller’s Speed it Up! or any of his other many excellent tomes!
Episode 143 – Outright.com Co-Founder Kevin Reeth!
Mar 30th
TOPIC: March 28 – Have a small business, or thinking about getting one off the ground? Co-founder of outright.com Kevin Reeth tells us all about a very cool (and free) accounting and invoicing application that will get you off the ground! As a small business and startup expert, he also provides a wealth of information about the current business climate and ways to make sure you are getting every deduction you can. Can’t tell a 1099 or 1065 from a can of WD-40? This show’s the one for you!
Jay Garmon’s Geek Trivia gives us the opportunity to give away a copy of Digitally Daunted by Sean and Jean Westcott to Dan in Utah (tune in next week to hear about more giveways avaialble!), and finally then crank up the tunes with “I Am (What You Want Me to Be)” by Camille Jones. Tune us in and turn it up!
Episode 142 – TokBox CEO Nick Triantos!
Mar 25th
TOPIC: March 21 – Joining the video phone, internet telephony revolution just couldn’t get any easier; or feature filled! We take a real close look at TokBox this week, and discuss the ins-and-outs of the service with the CEO Nick Triantos! He’s a great interview, and gamely puts up with our (non-TokBox related) tech issues to still deliver the goods! We use the opportunity to give the final TokBox cam away, and set us up for next week’s book giveways and some lovely Geek Trivia with Jay! There’s a grab at some cool sites of the week, and then the podcast only song “Where Do I Beg?” by Shirley Bassey finishes us off!
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