028 -- Life -- Bluejack does some consulting for corporate America. Background tracks include PJ Harvey Working for the Man, The Kills with No Wow, Cop Shoots Cop with $10 Bill, Violent Femmes: Make More Money Tonight, Yello's Oh Yeah. This is the first view on what is certain to be yet another death march.

#027 -- Science -- An interview with James Hamlin, a graduate student in physics who is experimenting with superconductivity and high pressure. We talk about his work as well as superfluids, space elevators, science fiction, inductive reasoning, philosophy and more. View photos of Hamlin's work at http://artsci.wustl.edu/~jjhamlin/DAC/, or check out his demonstration of superconductivity and levitation at http://artsci.wustl.edu/~jjhamlin/. The book that so influenced Hamlin is Beyond Einstein by Michio Kaku.

#026 -- Tech -- Much is being made over problems at Microsoft. Disaffected employees, a brain drain to Google, a large, slow-moving bureaucracy. This all may be true, but is this really a bad thing? Microsoft is a somewhat different company than tech observers seem to think it is. It plays by different rules, and it plays for different stakes. Rumors of its demise may be exaggerated.

#025 -- Science -- NASA has put forward its proposal for the next 10-15 years. The Space Shuttle is out, the Crew Exploration Vehicle is in. But not everyone is jumping for joy, and I don't just mean the usual luddites who believe space travel is a foolish luxury. Scientists, NASA watchers, and many other advocates of space exploration are greeting this plan with at best only moderate approval. What has changed since we went to the Moon the first time? Well, for one thing, we went to the Moon a second time. And a third. And a fourth. And a fifth. And a sixth. And then, in 1972, we decided not to bother anymore. In this podcast I go back to the source, Kennedy's proposal before congress (text at http://www.jfklibrary.org/j052561.htm) and consider the historical role of space exploration in our national psyche to better understand the present, and the future.

#024 The Singularity has been one of the most challenging new ideas in science fiction: challenging for writers to approach in interesting ways, as well as a challenge to everyone's beliefs about the significance of humanity. This show discusses some of the specifics of Vinge's idea, and presents some objections. It also takes a quick look at what the concept has meant for science fiction. Background music by Hallucinogen (Trancespotter), The Chemical Brothers (In Dust we Trust), and The Crystal Method (Ready for Action). Also read Vernor Vinge's Paper on the Singularity (http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~phoenix/vinge/vinge-sing.html), and check out more art by Francis A. Lohmueller (http://www.f-lohmueller.de/index.htm).

#023 -- Science -- The difference between a binary tree and a splay tree, the problems of marrying outside of geekdom, and the new Nano. No, not the nano you're thinking of. I don't give a fig what kind of IPod you listen to. Oh yeah, check out Unicorn LA.

#022 - Tech - Getting the podshow back on track: more positive in spirit than the Katrina stuff, and looking forward to new work. I'm working with the libsyn guys on performance and scalability now, so a few quick notes on that.

#021 - World - Calamity upon catastrophy, characterized by a failure of imagination. What do we do? Do we continue with half-hearted measures, follow the path of least resistence? Use our technological capacity for destruction only? Or do we do something Really Big? Something Really Good?