David Horn works with Microsoft in Seattle and is one of the organisers of the 2009 Space Elevator Conference. What is a “space elevator”, I hear you ask? Only the coolest idea you’ve ever heard! Imagine a day in the not-too-distant future where getting into space involves jumping into something like a luxury train that travels VERTICALLY – up into the air – traveling along a ‘ribbon’ made of carbon nanotubes – for a week until you get outside of the earth’s gravitational pull and THEN you jump in your space vehicle, which is attached to the other end of the ribbon, detach, and get flung into space via centrifugal force!

Links:
Wikipedia entry on Space Elevators.

Book your ticket for the 2009 Space Elevator Conference here.

Music:
Chris Garneau
“Fireflies” (mp3)
from “El Radio”
(Absolutely Kosher)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
Buy at Rhapsody
Buy at Napster
Stream from Rhapsody
More On This Album

I had the pleasure once again today to catch up with Dr Peter Ellyard, Australia’s leading futurist, one of our most popular public speakers and, of course, author of the historic first book published by TPNTXT:

“Designing 2050: Pathways to sustainable prosperity on spaceship earth”.

The auction for two signed proof copies of the book can be found here. The auction ends 15-Jun-08 22:11:27 AEST.

You can buy a new copy of “Designing 2050″, either in paperback or ebook format, here.

Watch the video interview:

In #323 I welcome back a previous G’Day World guest, one of my favourite scientists, Dr Aubrey de Grey.

Aubrey is the founder of The Methuselah Foundation, a non-profit 501c(3) organization committed to the acceleration of progress toward a cure for age-related disease, disability, suffering, and death.

They are running a special conference on aging at UCLA from June 27 – 29 and the Friday night session, with three hours of speeches from leaders in the field, is FREE. Book tickets here.

If you want to learn more about SENS, here’s a link to the show I did with Aubrey back in August 2005:
G’Day World #42 – Aubrey de Grey

The music on today’s show is “1,000,000″ from the new Nine Inch Nails album “THE SLIP“, which is licensed under a creative commons attribution non-commercial share alike license.

NIN encourage you to
remix it
share it with your friends,
post it on your blog,
play it on your podcast,
give it to strangers,
etc..

ROCK ON TRENT REZNOR!

Today it’s again my pleasure to catch up with Dr Peter Ellyard, Australia’s leading futurist. We caught up for lunch in South Yarra today and chatted about why visionaries often feel frustrated with their own progress, the need for a world democracy and how shareholders can use their voting power to effect political change.

Become part of the G’Day World conversation.

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Do me a solid and digg the show.

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• If you don’t know what I’m talking about, read this description in Wikipedia.

The G’Day World Theme Song is “Save Me” by The Napoleon Blown Aparts.

Wendell Wallach is a lecturer and consultant at Yale University’s Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics where he chairs the working research group on Technology and Ethics, leads a seminar for bioethics interns, and functions as a senior coordinator for other working groups and projects. He has lectured worldwide, published many articles, and is presently writing two books. Cybersoul explores the ways in which cognitive science and the Information Age are altering our understanding of human decision-making and ethics. Machine Morality: From Aristotle to Asimov and Beyond, which Wendell is co-authoring and which will be published by MIT Press, explores the prospects for designing computer systems capable of making moral decisions. Wendell is recognized as one of the leaders in the new field of Machine Ethics, and designed the first course anywhere on this subject, which he has taught twice at Yale.

Wendell is one of the speakers at the upcoming Singularity Summit.

Become part of the G’Day World conversation.
If you’re a member of Facebook, you can ADD ME AS A FRIEND and then ADD YOURSELF TO THE G’DAY WORLD GROUP.
Add me to your Twitter account.
Do me a solid and digg the show.

Get the TPN version of Particls?

Don’t forget to make use of my new comments line – +613 9016 9699.

You can now buy transcripts of this podcast from Pods In Print.

If you enjoyed this podcast, make sure you don’t miss future episodes by subscribing to our feed and leave us a voice comment!

• Subscribe to TPN::G’day World by Email
• If you use iTunes, click here.
• If you use another aggregator, grab our RSS feed here.
• If you don’t know what I’m talking about, read this description in Wikipedia.

The G’Day World Theme Song is “Save Me” by The Napoleon Blown Aparts.

J. Storrs Hall is an independent scientist and author. His most recent book is Beyond AI: Creating the Conscience of the Machine, and he was the founding Chief Scientist of Nanorex, Inc, which is developing a CAD system for nanomechanical engineering, is currently a member of Nanorex’ Scientific Advisory Board, and is a Research Fellow of the Institute for Molecular Manufacturing. He is also known as the originator of the Utility Fog concept.

Become part of the G’Day World conversation.

If you’re a member of Facebook, you can ADD ME AS A FRIEND and then ADD YOURSELF TO THE G’DAY WORLD GROUP.

Add me to your Twitter account.

Do me a solid and digg the show.

Get the TPN version of Particls?

Don’t forget to make use of my new comments line – +613 9016 9699.

You can now buy transcripts of this podcast from Pods In Print.

If you enjoyed this podcast, make sure you don’t miss future episodes by subscribing to our feed and leave us a voice comment!

• Subscribe to TPN::G’day World by Email
• If you use iTunes, click here.
• If you use another aggregator, grab our RSS feed here.
• If you don’t know what I’m talking about, read this description in Wikipedia.

The G’Day World Theme Song is “Save Me” by The Napoleon Blown Aparts.

Steve Omohundro is a computer scientist and President of Self-Aware Systems in Palo Alto, California. Since April 2007 he is a research advisor to the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence. We chatted this morning about his timeline and vision for the possible ways that artificial intelligence will emerge and how he believes self-aware machines will benefit humanity.

Steve is going to be another of the speakers at SIAI’s conference in September 2007.

Become part of the G’Day World conversation.

If you’re a member of Facebook, you can ADD ME AS A FRIEND and then ADD YOURSELF TO THE G’DAY WORLD GROUP.

Do me a solid and digg the show.

Get the TPN version of Particls?

Don’t forget to make use of my new comments line – +613 9016 9699.

You can now buy transcripts of this podcast from Pods In Print.

If you enjoyed this podcast, make sure you don’t miss future episodes by subscribing to our feed and leave us a voice comment!

• Subscribe to TPN::G’day World by Email
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• If you don’t know what I’m talking about, read this description in Wikipedia.

The G’Day World Theme Song is “Save Me” by The Napoleon Blown Aparts.

Eliezer Yudkowsky (recently heard on G’Day World #238) is back. This time we’re having a discussion about another one of Eli’s favourite memes – rationality. We had originally planned to discuss his “Twelve Virtues of Rationality” but got side tracked into why “faith” and “religion” are irrational and dangerous and… well… we never really got onto what we planned to talk about. So we’ve agreed to have another crack at this one in another couple of weeks. Next time we’ll stick to the script.

Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed today’s chat as well. As I explained to Eli afterwards, I don’t really think these shows will change the minds of many religious types. In fact, I’m pretty sure they have mostly stopped listening to the show.

The idea of these shows now is to provide some tools and arguments for those of you who find yourselves having discussions with your religious friends and family. So take notes (or get the transcript!!) and do your part to make the human race completely rational!

Now… folks… this isn’t radio. This is podcasting. It’s supposed to be a conversation, not just me talking at you.

Become part of the G’Day World conversation.

If you’re a member of Facebook, you can ADD ME AS A FRIEND and then ADD YOURSELF TO THE G’DAY WORLD GROUP.

Do me a solid and digg the show.

Get the TPN version of Particls?

Don’t forget to make use of my new comments line – +613 9016 9699.

You can now buy transcripts of this podcast from Pods In Print.

If you enjoyed this podcast, make sure you don’t miss future episodes by subscribing to our feed and leave us a voice comment!

• Subscribe to TPN::G’day World by Email
• If you use iTunes, click here.
• If you use another aggregator, grab our RSS feed here.
• If you don’t know what I’m talking about, read this description in Wikipedia.

The G’Day World Theme Song is “Save Me” by The Napoleon Blown Aparts.

Here’s the show you’ve been waiting for folks!

What can I say about Vint Cerf? One of the founding fathers of the Internet. Winner of the Turing Award. VP and Chief Internet Evangelist of Google, Inc. Chairman of ICANN. Trekkie. He’s in Facebook.

By the way, is it just me or does his cover photo here bear a strange resemblance to mine?

Rumour has it he was also the inspiration for the character of “The Architect” in The Matrix. Check out this image.

Here’s a couple of questions that I asked him:

What does the Chief Internet Evangelist at Google do?

Which job has been more fun – Google or being “special technical adviser” on Gene Roddenberry’s Earth: Final Conflict?

What was Al Gore’s actual role in inventing the Internet?

Back in 1973, when Vint and Bob Kahn developed TCP/IP, did they have any idea how big it would become?

Is the Interplanetary Internet (which Vint has been working on with JPL) for more than making sure astronauts have good access to porn on a trip to Mars?

When are we going to see IPv6 rolled out more widely?

Where are we currently at with Network Neutrality?

What is the role of ICANN and who should get involved?

If he could go back in time, what advice would he give to Vint Cerf in 1973?

It was obviously a great pleasure and honour to have Mr Cerf of the show and I hope you all enjoy it as much as I did. And I have to sincerely thank Stan Relihan and Carla, Vint’s Chief of Staff, for helping set it up. This morning was certainly a highlight of my podcasting career.

Here’s something new – if you’re a member of Facebook, you can ADD ME AS A FRIEND and then ADD YOURSELF TO THE G’DAY WORLD GROUP.

Get the TPN version of Particls?

Don’t forget to make use of my new comments line – +613 9016 9699.

If you enjoyed this podcast, make sure you don’t miss future episodes by subscribing to our feed and leave us a voice comment!

• Subscribe to TPN::G’day World by Email
• If you use iTunes, click here.
• If you use another aggregator, grab our RSS feed here.
• If you don’t know what I’m talking about, read this description in Wikipedia.

The G’Day World Theme Song is “Save Me” by The Napoleon Blown Aparts.

Wow. I just had one of those whooooooo moments, when the world spins. I was reading Brook Turner’s article on George Miller from last week’s Australian Financial Review magazine. Anyone who knows me well knows how much I admire George. MAD MAX and MAD MAX II are obviously the greatest Australian films ever made and two of the greatest films ever made full stop. On top of that, I’ve always admired Miller’s auteurness, the way he has avoided the Hollywood system, followed his own vision, done it his way. That appeals to the rebel in me.

So just imagine when I read these paragraphs in the article:

“Miller’s first big eureka moment came when he attended a lecture by the maverick American thinker and polymath Buckminster Fuller at university in the late sixties.”

And then, a few paragraphs later…

“Miller’s second great epiphany came when he heard the American writer Joseph Campbell speak on a rainy night in Santa Monica after he had made MM (Mad Max).”

Again, anyone who knows me well knows that Joseph Campbell has been a major influence on my thinking for 20 years. And recently I have been obsessed with Fuller. So weird. I also know that my friend Peter Ellyard has been heavily influenced by both of them as well. As, I guess, have lots of people. It’s just weird when you find out that someone you’ve admired for a long time has had very similar influences to yourself. If the article had said he was also a fan of Napoleon, I probably would have choked on my cereal.

******

Rage Against the Machine reunites! It might have only been for a one-off concert but we can only hope that the boys will put the band back together. God knows we need them now more than ever. I am a HUGE fan of RAtM. I haven’t heard that kind of anger or genuine passion in music since they left us 7 years ago (can it really be that long??). Even Lou and Bruce can only summon a fraction of the heat and intensity of Zack. And now you do what they told ya….

******

I said to a friend of mine today “I was watching a great speech by Vint Cerf today”. The friend replied “Should I know who that is?”.
This person is a webmaster for a pretty big company. When I explained that Vint is the co-inventor of the internet, the friend replied “Does that have anything to do with the term “surfing” the internet?”

Which lead me to think…

Vint Cerf has to be (with Bob Kahn) perhaps the most successful inventor in history, certainly if you measure the success of an inventor as ‘adoption of the invention over time’. Since they invented the internet in 1973, it has grown to over one billion customers. Even Microsoft doesn’t have that many customers. If you stop the average person in the middle of any street anywhere in the world and ask them “Have you heard of the internet?”, I think the response rate will be pretty high, even if they aren’t fortunate enough yet to be a ‘user’. However, I wonder – if you ask the same person “Who is Vint Cerf?”, they probably won’t be able to answer you. I wonder how that feels? I should get him onto the show and ask him. I’ve been watching this speech he recently gave to Hungarian “TV University” and he comes across as a nice guy, a regular human being. Can you even begin to imagine the impact he has had on the future of the human race? Bucky Fuller would have loved the internet. Talk about being a future maker!

******

The Silverlight demo that Microsoft announced last night at MIX07 is pretty cool. Sean Alexander, the product manager, is coming on the G’Day World this week or maybe next to talk to us about it in more depth.

******

I was getting very excited last night about the HUGE increase in audience to my Napoleon podcast during April (400%) until I got the full TPN stats today. It looks like we’ve had a few very naughty people trying to DOS my servers during the month. Fortunately they failed but in the process they completely screwed my stats. Either that or it’s innocent and someone inadvertently tried to download a couple of our shows tens of thousands of times over a couple of days. Either way, it’s ruined my day.

******
Marshall Kirkpatrick and the folks at Splashcast today launched their new application which looks like a very cool media player. Unfortunately, they have chosen to brand it “MyPodcastNetwork”. Obviously I have issues with that. So I have sent them an email requesting a discussion immediately. Hopefully we can resolve this in a polite fashion.

******

I had the fortune last night to be invited to Peter Ellyard’s 70th birthday party at SOS, a sustainable and ethical restaurant at Melbourne Central with an amazing view over the old Melbourne Museum. I’m guessing there were about 100 people there from different sides of Peter’s life – his family, colleagues and friends. It’s was a terrific night and the tributes to Peter were all heart-warming (even mine). I had a series of engaging and vibrant discussions with a group of intelligent, articulate people from various walks of life I consider new friends, including Lauren (a Rhodes scholar), Felix (a self-described “70-year-old French Jew” who spent 30 years living in a kibbutz in Israel), Felix’s wife Shoshanna who is a philosopher/artist/educator who successfully fought off several of us who wanted to debunk the documentary she recently watched on memories transmitted through heart transplants, Ralph, a surgeon, his wife Patsy, an editor, and many others. My good mate Anthony, the guy who introduced me to Peter, was there, as was Diane, the masseuse at the Como Building in South Yarra who apparently originally introduced Peter to AJ and, coincidentally, has massaged all three of us at one point in time (separately, I might add) over the years.

ANYWAY… many of the tributes during the evening talked about Peter’s overwhelming generosity to everyone in his life. I’ve certainly been touched by this in the couple of months I’ve known him. He seems to operate on the principle that the more you give of yourself, the more will come back to you.

It reminded me instantly of a section in Buckminster Fuller’s book “Critical Path” which I was reading earlier in the day. Fuller described this principle, which I’ve learned to think of over the years as “The Principle of Reciprocity” as “precession”. He defined “precession” as “the effect of bodies in motion on other bodies in motion”. Precession was his answer to his own question “How do you obtain the money to live with and to acquire the materials and tools with which to work?”. This was the beginning of his mission when he was effectively bankrupt. His examination of the world around him lead him to believe that bodies in motion exert right-angle effects on other bodies around them. For example, the gravitational effect one planet has on another is at right-angles to the direction of motion of the planet (okay, so my simplistic understanding of the general theory of relativity would suggest that it’s actually the other way around… the warping of space-time that the mass of body A has causes body B to travel in a certain directional orbit around it… but let’s leave that aside for the time being, okay?). Drop a stone in a still pond and the concentric rings spread out at ninety degrees to the motion of the stone.

Fuller theorized that while most humans had, historically speaking, spent most of their energy trying to selfishly earn a living for themselves, some of them had, inadvertently, helped “nature” progress by making huge leaps in the standard of human civilization. These advances were “side effects” of the primary objective of being selfish.

He wrote:

“Therefore, what humans called the side effects of their conscious drives in fact produced that main ecological effects of generalized technological regeneration. I therefore assumed that what humanity rated as “side effects” are nature’s main effects. I adopted the prescessional “side effects” as my prime objective.”

What if, instead of working with the objective of your own comfort, you worked purely for the betterment of the human race? Would, perhaps, your own comfort be taken care of by “nature” in some sort of principle of reciprocity?

Fuller wrote:

“”Since nature was clearly intent on making humans successful in support of the integrity of eternally regenerative Universe, it seemed clear that is I undertook ever more humanly favorable physical-environment-producing artifact developments that in fact did improve the chances of all humanity’s successful development, it was quite possible that nature would support my efforts, efforts, provided I were choosing the successively most efficient technical means of so doing. Nature was clearly supporting all her intercomplementary ecological regenerative tasks – ergo, I must so commit myself and must depend upon nature providing the physical means of realization of my invented environment-advantaging artifacts. I noted that nature did not require hydrogen to “earn a living” before allowing hydrogen to behave in the unique manner in which it does. Nature does not require that any of its intercomplementing members “earn a living”.”

Now I don’t want to sound all “The Secret” on you, but there does seem to me to be a principle that, put simply, “if you do good things, good things happen to you”. Karma without the reincarnation. From the moment I started TPN, I had this feeling that this was an important mission. I’ve always felt like I had a purpose. And, that if I did it properly, worked hard, was focused, disciplined, and did it with integrity, that “good things would happen”.

I don’t expect miracles. I don’t expect things will always fall into my lap. But I do believe (not very scientific of me, i know) that if I pursue the right vision, diligently, honestly, and work my ass off, that perhaps I am merely fulfilling the purpose the Universe has for me. Now, again, I’m not suggesting that the Universe is “intelligent” or that there is some sort of mystical “higher power” that “has a plan” for me.

But… humans are made from atoms. Atoms obey the laws of physics and chemistry. Could you say that an atom of oxygen, connected to two atoms of hydrogen, has the purpose of being water? At the moment in time when you observe it as a water molecule, isn’t that it’s purpose? And up a level, on a macro scale, what is the purpose of that molecule of water? To make a cell function? To provide life-giving nutrients to an animal or plant? And that plant, what is its purpose? To feed me?

In the great chain of “purpose”, with every component of the Universe fulfilling its individual task, am I not merely a bunch of atoms, each of them obeying the laws of physics and chemistry? Am I, then, not also obeying the laws of physics and chemistry? Perhaps I, like the oxygen atom, have a role to play, determined, not by some mystical being, but by the laws of physics and chemistry.

Peter Ellyard is fulfilling his role, as mentor and futurist and leader. As he has done that diligently over his lifetime, he has obviously been rewarded in a variety of ways.

If I fulfill my purpose, which I see today as being a cog in the human evolution machine, dragging us an inch closer to the realization of our potential as a species, perhaps the Universe will continue to rise up and support my efforts, naturally and effortlessly?

After I did show #217 last week, I got an email from today’s guest – CJ Fearnley, Executive Director of the Synergetics Collaborative, a non-for-profit organization that brings people together to build on the work of the late, great Buckminster Fuller. CJ complimented me on the show and we agreed it would be fun to have him come on and talk about Fuller in more depth.

Here are some additional links about Bucky Fuller for extra reading:
Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth
Geodesic Dome
Needle Tower
Design Science Lab
The Buckminster Fuller Institute

If you enjoyed this podcast, make sure you don’t miss future episodes by subscribing to our feed and leave us a voice comment!

• Subscribe to TPN:: G’day World by Email
• If you use iTunes, click here.
• If you use another aggregator, grab our RSS feed here.
• If you don’t know what I’m talking about, read this description in Wikipedia.

The G’Day World Theme Song is “Save Me” by The Napoleon Blown Aparts.