Lots of interesting news today, the most controversial involving whether we have the right to take unapproved treatments for terminal conditions.  Lots of calls on that issue, as well as the withdrawal of TEDx support for a conference in West Hollywood involving a number of consciousness researchers.  Fringe science once again is under attack..

And for exploring the fringe world of Bigfoot, we have none other than our very own local researcher, explorer, and curator of the Bigfoot Discovery Museum, Michael Rugg, in the studio today.  A consumate story teller, Michael educates us in the mystery of Bigfoot, especially local lore and legend. He shares with us some audio files he collected of very haunting Bigfoot cries in the Santa Cruz mountains. Amazing to hear!

We begin this week’s show on The Ethan Bearman show, discussing Yahoo’s controversial banning of telecommuting in their organization..

As the revolutionary Google Glass going public this month, with 1500 pair going out to the first batch of early adopters, we may have some new rules regarding use, particularly with regard to their ability to record everything the wearer sees and hears.   We discuss this controversial issue of privacy with Mark Buchanon, a local programmer who is developing related technologies, and Greg Panos, an augmented reality expert who has just attended the TED and BIL conferences in Long Beach, CA, where the new Google Glass was very much in evidence… An ill-fated yet hilarious dating  attempt demonstating the capabilities and potential pitfalls of the technology can be seen here.

We really enjoyed hosting the show today, it had a nice flow to it. AP’s Liz Sidtodi’s suggestion of citizen congressmen and Senators entering politics for one term only, for the intention of crafting and passing solid legisation, and then leaving, is as she said, a “radically reaonable idea.”  

And Drones, should we let them free to roam American skies?  Not trivial, as basically, drones are airplanes, and as such can do most things airplanes do well - fast and easy transpo of people and goods, exploration and pleasure flying, and defensive/offensive immune system type roles in facing/creating threats.

And beyond the usual piloted airplane roles, drones, or more accurately UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles), can be very very small, as diminuative as hummingbirds and dragonflys.  What should the regs be for such craft?  Not exactly in the exising purvue of the Federal Aviation Administration….:oh no, Mr. Bill!  We did not drone on about UAVs, however,  <groan>  as there were other amazing stories this week  worthy of our attention :-)

One geek topic we explored is the creation of a personal mobile cloud and a home cloud.  What’s the main thing people run back into their burning houses to save, besides loved ones?  Often old photographs and family archives…our personal cherished memories. From a nerd pov, of course, these deeply emotional moments and milestones..i.e. weddings, birthdays, graduations, award ceremonies, the things we like to reflect on later, are basically, data.  Photographs have given way to computer files.

To discuss this we brought on one of our fav geeks, Mark Buchanon, a programmer working on such issues, and looked at Seagate’s breakthrough award-winning new gadget, the Wireless Plus, a small portable wifi hard drive!

We also spoke quite extensively about crowd-sourcing projects, and that how this year, 10% of Sundance films (17 movies), were crowd-funded by sites like Kickstarter and IndieGoGo.  And just this week, a Kickstarter-financed film won an Academy Award!  (‘Inocent,’ in the Short Documentary category).

We then spoke with tech visionary Dave Blackburn, who started a new IndieGogo project today, a documentary on a topic dear to his heart and that has figured prominently in his life, fast-pitched softball.  Dave had a rather special relationship with the sport, as you will hear.. 

Enjoy the show, and we’d love your comments and feedback!

Quite an interesting week, with the invasion of an alien species of squid on our Aptosian beaches, the so-called Humboldt Jumbo Squid, a very large species that eats our local calamari population for lunch, much like us!  We awoke to found hundreds of these 2-4 foot long deep sea creatures from the South Pacific stranded on our beaches, apparently tossed there by large waves during the early morning’s high tide.  We even found one alive and saved it’s alien life.  

Meanwhile, our Rover Curiousity started to look for Martian life in the soil of the Red Planet, unearthing some tell-tale signs…or should I say ‘unmartianing’…and on this planet, China’s Dr. Pei has successfully created brain stem cells from urine, a remarkable achievement.. 

Oh yes, and that the human brain on stories suggests that our brains actually activate the same various centers of activity as the person who tells the story.  Not to jump to any conclusions of course, but could reality actually be a simulation, a giant Holodeck? Hmmmmm….

We have more commentary than usual for this show, as we had very provocative topics to stimulate us, like Peter Diamandis, who spoke on the topic of Abundance this week at NASA Ames.  Are we ready for a Star Trek type of society, where it’s not so much about jobs as about passion and actual skills?  And with technological change  happening exponentially these days, can we move into a solar system economy smoothly? We think so, as it is actually happening now. Enjoy!

After all the bru ha ha from Wired this month on how we are not safe with using online passwords anymore, we contacted Captain Crunch, King of the Hackers, for his sage advice.  Enjoy!