The World Transformed

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Total Geek: Real Aliens, Fake Star Trek and Other Geeky Goodness Jul 08, 2016

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Hosts Phil Bowermaster and Stephen Gordon do some serious geeking out. Yes, There Have Been Aliens In our recent paper, Professor Sullivan and I did this by shifting the focus of Drake’s equation. Instead of asking how many civilizations currently exist, we asked what the probability is that ours is the only technological civilization that has ever appeared. By asking this question, we could bypass the factor about the average lifetime of a civilization. This left us with only three unknown factors, which we combined into one “biotechnical” probability: the likelihood of the creation of life, intelligent life and technological capacity. “Axanar,” Other Fan Films Endangered By New “Star Trek” Guidelines “The fan production must … not exceed 30 minutes total, with no additional seasons, episodes, parts, sequels or remakes.” Time to think about skipping the new Trek Movie? (premieres two weeks from today!) There’s plenty of good Trek around produced by fans. Is everybody up to date? I’m especially impressed by: Star Trek Continues Matthew’s 3 hour Hobbit cut. WT 178-487

The Declaration of Amazing 2016 Jul 06, 2016

Show notes

Hosts Phil Bowermaster and Stephen Gordon review the Declaration of Singularity and amazing stories that indicate we will probably be making it sooner than some might expect. The Declaration of Singularity A reminder of why we fight! Chisels to Genes: How We’ll Soon Grow What We Used to Build Jason Kelly, founder of Gingko Bioworks, said that the company plans to create new species of bacteria whose purpose is to make a particular chemical. For example, a French fragrance company has commissioned Gingko Bioworks to grow rose oil (in a bacteria) so they don’t have to squeeze it from flower petals. Your Self-Driving Car Will Be Programmed to Kill You—Deal With It A terribly misleading headline! It should read: “Your Self-Driving Car Will Be Programmed to Kill You—And Here’s Why That Isn’t a Problem.” Or better yet: “Your Self-Driving Car Will Be Programmed to Kill You—And That’s Totally Amazing.” Elon musk open AI WT 177-484

The Future and Unlimited Possibility Jul 02, 2016

Show notes

Hosts Phil Bowermaster and Stephen Gordon discuss three varieties of possibility and list examples of each: 1. The Adjacent Possible The adjacent possible is a kind of shadow future, hovering on the edges of the present state of things, a map of all the ways in which the present can reinvent itself. Possibilities that we are only a step or two away from. The Robot Lawyer Chatbot lawyer overturns 160,000 parking tickets in London and New York See also: Conversational User Interface Going to Mars Elon Musk Charts Path to Colonizing Mars Within a Decade 2. The Distant Possible Possibilities that we can imagine but that are not on the immediate horizon Time Travel Interstellar Travel Digital Immortality Question: where do we put life extension, cure for cancer, jobless economy? 3. The Hidden Possible Possibilities both near and far that we haven’t thought of yet., e.g. when Amazon said they were looking into doing deliveries via drones. Uber, Lyft, AirBnB Improving health via gut bacteria Some ideas are well known by some but still the hidden possible for many others: Post-Scarcity The Singularity WT 176-483

Why Dumb Ideas Matter (and Can Be Amazingly Powerful) Jun 30, 2016

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Hosts Phil Bowermaster and Stephen Gordon talk about the surprising usefulness of dumb ideas. The 10 Craziest Startup Ideas Of All Time Blippy LayoffSpace Gamecrush Audioo Honestly.com Agester Chat With a Star The Meet Pen Cuecat Shweeb Withings 10 STUPID BUSINESS IDEAS THAT MADE MILLIONS 1. Pet Rock 2. Million Dollar Homepage 3. Holy Ink 4. “Positive” Attraction 5. Plastic Wishbones 6. Doggles 7. Exercise Cards 8. Working Vacations 9. Santa Mail 10. Aquariums… without the fish Why the World Needs More Brilliant 'Stupid' Ideas The Power of Starting Something Stupid Also -- “good” ideas that failed! Webvan Apple Newton Google Glass WT 175-482

Schooling Bezos: Debating with (and Giving Suggestions to) the Founder of Amazon Jun 25, 2016

Show notes

Hosts Phil Bowermaster and Stephen Gordon examins whether they agree or disagree with Jeff Bezos on some points he made in a recent talk: 6. Gawker's opponents need a 'thick skin' 5. Amazon Prime Video 'helps sell more shoes' 4. Amazon isn't trying to kill UPS 3. AI will have a massive impact on society in the next 20 years 2. Government surveillance is an 'issue of our age' 1. Donald Trump's attempt to freeze media critics is 'not appropriate' Meanwhile, our friend Will Brown has an idea for how Jeff can put us all to work. OTHER GEEK: Fun with the Queen’s “green screen” dress WT 174-481

Artificial Intelligence Is Here and It’s (Wait for It) Amazing Jun 23, 2016

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The AI future seems to be arriving sooner than expected. Hosts Phil Bowermaster and Stephen Gordon review some amazing recent developments. Long Promised Artificial Intelligence Is Looming—and It’s Going to Be Amazing 10 Stats About Artificial Intelligence That Will Blow You Away 1. $5.05 billion market by 2020 2. 6 billion devices will request AI support 3. $5.4 billion invested in AI start-ups 4. 80% of executives believe AI boosts productivity 5. Most mobile users use voice assistants 6. Virtual assistants will make decisions for you 7. Most enterprise relationships with customers won't require humans by 2020 8. AI will replace 16% of jobs over next decade 9. Robots will probably outnumber humans at work 10. AI is powered by GPUs, not CPUs Intelligent robot that 'remembers and learns' could be scrapped after escaping a lab for a second time Join us and be amazed!

Arguing (and Agreeing) with Elon Jun 11, 2016

Show notes

Hosts Phil Bowermaster and Stephen Gordon provide a reality check on some recent seemingly outrageous statements about the future by Elon Musk. Will we really be on Mars in less than a decade? Are we really just two years away from fully autonomous cars? Are we really living in a computer simulation? Elon Musk Just Made These 5 Bold Claims About the Future Elon Musk believes we are probably characters in some advanced civilization's video game Elon Musk goes on a ‘machines building machines’ rant about the future of manufacturing Other Geek Stephen discusses Onitama: A chess-lite game played on a 5x5 grid (instead of an chess 8x8). And, instead of pieces having assigned moves (like bishop always moves diagonally) the available ways a piece can move are dictated by cards. You have two cards in hand to choose from. There’s a card “on deck” about to come into your hand. You can use those cards to move any of your pieces. "We love it because it took about 5 minutes to learn, it takes about 10 minutes to play. But the depth is amazing. We could play for years - getting better all along.".

Miracle and Wonder: Amazing Developments in Medicine Jun 09, 2016

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Hosts Phil Bowermaster and Stephen Gordon review some recent (amazing!) news from the world of medicine. Researchers created a robotic hand that is eerily human-like and can learn on its own AI 'doctors' will diagnose your X-rays Stanford researchers ‘stunned’ by stem cell experiment that helped stroke patient walk Lab-Grown Kidneys Proven To Work: Now Moving To Being Viable Option For CKD & Dialysis Patients Scientists have performed the first trials of a 'universal cancer vaccine' Ears, noses grown from stem cells in lab dishes Join us! WT 171-478

Space: Final Frontier or Next Big Thing? Jun 07, 2016

Show notes

Hosts Phil Bowermaster and Stephen Gordon discuss how our perception of outer space may be shifting. Still a realm of great mystery and scientific curiosity, space also promises to be a new land of opportunity. Recent news stories reflect both trends. Three Spiral Galaxies Created a Black Hole Rosetta spacecraft finds key building blocks for life in a comet Here’s What Humanity Wanted Aliens to Know About Us in 1977 Turning Near-Earth Asteroids Into Strategically-Placed Fuel Dumps Ceres: Interplanetary resources Selling Solution developed for Space on Earth (They've raised $21 million.) US Government to approve private unmanned Moon mission for next year. Join us! WT 170-477

Superhero Smackdown! (And Other Geeky Goodness) Jun 04, 2016

Show notes

Hosts Phil Bowermaster and Stephen Gordon go full fanboy with their combined reviews of Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice and Captain America: Civil War. Warning: spoilers and more spoilers! A few topics: Everybody has been pretty hard on Batman vs. Superman but what are its good points? New Spider-Man: Awesome or Totally Awesome? Civil War: the ultimate in comic book big-screen entertainment or just fan service driven to a ridiculous level? (Or both?!?) Plus OTHER Other Geek Stephen touts the glories of 7 Wonders Duel, explaining why it's far better than "2-player mode" in regular Seven Wonders. Phil with some thoughts on the latest developments on Silicon Valley. Join us! WT 169-476

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