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Ep. 300 – Alex Knapp of Forbes and Asteroid Contingency Planning
Feb 19th
TOPIC: Wow! Episode 300 … and what a great one it is too! Oddly enough, our tricentennial goes unremarked, either through excessive humility or rampant obliviousness (long time listeners of the show will be placing their bets on obliviousness), but with Dave “Sparky” Saganaki, good friend Jay Garmon and new friend of the show Alex Knapp of Forbes magazine tech and blog fame, this is an outstanding reflection on the past years of broadcast!
Jay of course provides us with a great stumper for the coming week:
Who was the one (and only) person in history to have ever been hit directly by a meteorite?
With this lineup there was no way to fit in coolsites of the week, but don’t forget to tweet with Alex @TheAlexKnapp! We end with “The Ship Song” by Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds.
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. 265 – Trade up that iPad 2 with NextWorth!
Apr 8th
TOPIC: Dave and Mike get to talk to Jeff Trachsel of NextWorth this week, and discuss how NextWorth can help you trade up (or at least get rid of) all that tech junk you’ve been collecting!
We also talk about Macintosh’s malicious malware that has descended on fully 600,000 of you supercilious, overconfident apple fanboys! (And yes, Mike does take a load of special joy out of this occurrence). Between that and Google glasses discussions we wind up missing out on Jay Garmon but he does send along a trivia question to keep us thinking for a week or two:
What is the first recognized software Easter egg — one that’s 45 years old?
We also get some great coolsites of the week in:
- DailyDislike – Exactly what it sounds like … tell people what you hate today!
- White Pages Neighborhoods – See who lives next to you! Phone numbers, addresses, and kids names … a little creepy perhaps but ultrauseful!
- Search EBooks – Great place to find downloadable copyright free e-Books and documents!
- HypeMachine – Great place (and app) to find new music!
The podcast only song of the week is “Mister LittleJeans” by Runaway.
Ep. 244 – A Vaccination for Late Fees?
Sep 27th
TOPIC: OK, maybe not, but Mike and Dave cover so much ground (and go so far off the rails) there’s no possible headline that could encompass it all! Between bemoaning the anti-vaccer movement to Kindle library books and Spotify on Facebook, we get a lot of great conversation in … and the occasional bit of tech too!
Jay Garmon comes to us with yet another great geek trivia question:
Since ratification in 1972, how many people have filed suit under the space liability convention?
We go for quality not quantity this week on the coolsites with:
- Mouse Without Borders (download link) – Straight from microsoft’s garage, this KVM killer will let you run multiple machines with a single mouse and keyboard!
- F.Lux – adjusts your screen color and brightness automagically based on the time of day and your location.
The podcast only song of the week this week is “Bomba” by Jesse Matador!
Ep. 235 – Matt Richtel’s Idle Hands!
Jul 7th
TOPIC: Pulitzer prize winning journalist and author Matt Richtel comes on-air to discuss his newest book and the fate of our brains, on tech! Plus, Jay Garmon gives us another zinger with this geek trivia question:
How many mommies and daddies did Dolly, the famous cloned sheep have?
We would’ve like to spend more time with Matt and Jay, but don’t mind getting one coolsite in anyways:
- Intel’s Museum of Me – Intel turns your social map into a cool walk-through museum!
The podcast only song of the week is by The Juan Maclean and is called “Accusations.” Enjoy!
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.
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