#058 -- Free will versus determinism (or fate) is a topic that humans have debated in song and story for as far back in our history as we have knowledge. Is human choice real, or is it illusionary? And if we have choice, what can we do with it? This discussion covers the philosophical, the spiritual, and the scientific aspects of the question from neurology to metaphysics.

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#057 -- The Apple iPhone -- Is the iPhone the cell phone reinvented? Or is it mobile computing as it ought to be? How does this relate to Google's philosophy that the network is the platform? Is this the smartphone that Bluejack has been longing for, or just another expensive toy tempting people in the wrong direction?

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#056 -- Sony Reader -- In which the etch-a-sketch comes of age... and becomes the first cool new display technology in years. Sony, however, is not content with being the first mainstream company to make this new technology available to Americans, it's also starting yet another standards war by intoducing one more proprietary ebook format into an already crowded field. Is the result totally lame? The future of reading? Is this the gotta-have tech of the 2006 Christmas season? What will it take to win the reader wars?

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<b>#055</b> -- Season 2 / Google Office -- Overclocked returns with season 2. Bluejack re-introduces himself, and the concept of Overclocking the human being. Concludes with a brief introduction of Google's evolving online office suite. Music by Gomez and Hallucinogen.

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#054 -- Simulated Life and Other Topics -- There's more than one kind of artificial life out there, as fans of Second Life are well aware. Also: NASA decides to launch regardless of the risk. Also: Spy Planes just aren't for Iraq anymore. Also: Network Neutrality, compromised. Also: Legislating honesty? Finally: what's Bluejack up to these days. Music by Scratch D. v. H-Bomb; Beck; Tom Waits; Ruby Shuz; Eat Static.

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#053 -- Artificial Life -- A quick overview of Artificial Intelligence and Artificial Life, inspired by the New Ties project. (https://www.new-ties.org/mambo/) Bluejack stumbles his way back into podcasting, but clearly it's a fairly shaky effort. Might be a good lead in to more in depth topics about Artificial Intelligence. Music by Shostakovich, Moby, Tricky, Amon Tobin, and VNV Nation.

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#052 -- Network Neutrality -- Beginning with an interesting update on space-based weapons, this show represents Overclocked's return to active production. The main topic -- Network Neutrality -- covers proposed changes to the architecture of the internet to give major telcos more control over the content that is delivered to your machine, and in particular to make more money off content producers (such as podcasters, to name one small example).

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#051 -- Getting Back to Cool -- Hey, this is a miscellaneous little show! Quick commentary on the slip of Microsoft's Windows Vista; a quick look at the Babelcast podcast/vodcast (http://www.flexatone.net/podcast.html) which is a sort of a cool multimedia update on the old http://www.jodi.org concept. Then we launch into conversations with listeners. Thanks for your emails, and keep 'em coming! Music is Khan (Cube 40), Doof (Home on the Strange), Hedningarna (Grodan Widergrenen), Tricky (Stay).

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#050 -- NASA's Orbiters -- Overclocked returns, and checks in with NASA to see what's going on with the space shuttle, the CEV, but more particularly the new Mars "Reconaissance" Orbiter, which has recently made orbit without mishap -- no English-Metric conversion mistakes, no software glitches, and only the usual amount of lame NASA sound-bites. Music from Pink Floyd: Echos.

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#049 -- The Chemistry of Love -- Love is arguably more fundamental to human nature than intelligence, and one of the unique experiences that (while pet owners may disagree) is thought to separate us from other species on Earth. But scientists understand much about the chemical nature of love. This show is a brief introduction to the life-cycle of love chemistry, with divergences into natural selection and spirituality. Music by Bob Dylan, Concrete Blond, Siouxie and the Banshees, Hoyt Axton, and Richard Thompson.

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#048 -- Tech -- The Destination of Technology. Where is technology going? Are humans going to be uploaded into a virtual reality? Will technology become so ubiquitous that it is in fact part of the human body? What is the role and function of technology in our lives now, and where is that going? Music by the Art of Noise (Beat Box), Hedningarna (Hoeglorfen), Fatboy Slim (In Heaven), Aegis (Phaselift), Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (In Like the Rose).

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#047 -- Tech -- Apple to Buy Palm? Bluejack considers the merits of the case, discusses the disadvantages of corporate acquisition, evaluates the buyability of Palm, and considers the destination of the digital assistant market. With music from Front 242 (Masterhit), Afro Celt Sound System (Hypnotica), the Sugarcubes (Cold Sweat), and the Pogues (Tombstone).

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#046 -- Cold Fusion! -- Bluejack takes a look at the (pseudo?)scientific theory of cold fusion, touching more on the dynamics within the scientific community than the technical particulars, with comparison to the theory of intelligent design, and an unfortunate failure to bring in perpetual motion machines, which he fully intended to. Music includes Shpongle (Vapour Rumors), Red Hot Chili Peppers (Give it Away), Violent Femmes (Lack of Knowledge), Gillian Welch (One Monkey), Kaki King (Close Your Eyes and Burst into Flames), Simon Rattle (Once More into the Breach).

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#045 -- Life -- Time in the Zone. Bluejack hunts for some news worth reading and comes up with a rather shoddy article in the New Scientist. Researchers are trying to understand how the brain perceives time. Bluejack improvises on this theme to compare and contrast "the zone" as known to athletes with other forms of highly efficient modes of working within time. And back to 200 pixel images. I don't like that 300.

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#043 -- Life -- A meandering discussion of the difference between working for Corporate America, and being part of an indie start up. Music by Michelle Shocked, Tom Waits, P.J. Harvey, Ani DiFranco, Cat Power, and Richard Thomson. PS: If you're viewing this on the website, you'll notice I expanded the size of the accompanying image from 200x200 to 300x300. Frankly, this looks too large; but there's something in iTunes about 300x300. I'll have to see if all these things are coupled.

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#043 -- Tech -- The advent of the E-book. For years the E-book has been a killer app that's just around the corner. But until now, nobody has ever made an ebook that even comes close to a product that will please readers. Will 2006, at last, be the year of the EBook? A discussion of the technology and the trends that will drive the first successful EBook. Background music by DJ Cheb-i-Sabbah (Raju Vedalu), Laurie Anderson (Speak My Language), Juno Reactor (Silver), Gillian Welch (Ruination Day, Pt 2).

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#042 -- Science -- The Pandemic Panic: how dangerous is Avian Flu? How likely is it that Bird Flus will be the way civilization ends? Recent deaths in Turkey indicate that the H5N1 virus isn't just in asia anymore. But does that mean that the fourth horseman of the apocalypse is about to ride us all down? Quick answer: No. Music by White Stripes (No Faith in Medicine), Tricky (Car Crash), Nirvana (Stay Away), Beck (Nicotine and Gravy), Morphine (Murder for the Money), Concrete Blonde (Little Conversations).

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#041 -- Science -- Human stem cells have been injected into foetal mouse brains, with the result that these cells have differentiated not only into neurons, but into mouse-like neurons. Bluejack considers the science, the implications, and (to a lesser degree) the ethics of this experiment. Efforts to interview actual scientists, sadly, come to naught. Music by Portishead, The Swans, Jethro Tull, P.H. Harvey, Melissa Sheehan, and Richard Thompson.

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#040 -- Life -- Corporate Evil. Most of us have had the misfortune to work in a toxic environment where office politics results in unethical behavior that is (A) no fun to be part of, and (B) bad for the company. Where does low-level corporate evil come from? Is it a trickle down effect from corrupt leadership? Or is it a grassroots evil that climbs the ladders like a strangling vine? Music by Devo, Hallucinogen, Underworld, and Juno Reactor.

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#039 -- Science -- Bluejack revisits some earlier topics. First, back to the space program again with a brief discussion of robotic versus manned space programs, jumping off from a more in-depth Quirks and Quarks show analyzing this topic. Secondly, another look at Intelligent Design in its guise as Panspermia: the notion that life, or at least genetic material, may have originated on some other planet and been transported to Earth, either by random action of meteors or, possibly, the not-at-all random action of super-intelligent spacefarers. The music? All Shpongle: Vapor Rumours, Flute Fruit, Once Upon the Sea of Blissfull Awareness, and -- inevitably -- Shpongle Spores.

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#038 -- Science -- NASA is not wowing anyone this fall with either the long term plan for interplanetary exploration or their current work on the International Space Station. New cracks in the foam, and underwhelming plans for the space station, and insufficient funds to ever reach Mars. Meanwhile China is gradually building momentum towards a moon mission, and private enterprise is getting closer to having viable space vehicles. Music by Fatboy Slim, Timo Mass, Snog, DJ Micro. NOTE: the phone number for voice messages is inaccurate! Not enough people called, so I lost my number!

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#037 -- World -- One of the chemical weapons used by Saddam Hussein against his own people was white phosphorous. In the United States military, this substance is known as Whiskey Pete, or Willie Pete, and has been used in "Shake and Bake" missions in Fallujah. What is White Phosphorous? What does it do? Why would we use it? What is its status under international law? Did we really use it? Background music by Laurie Anderson (Credit Racket), Fugazi (Exit Only), Garmarna (Hunger), PGR (The Chemical Bride: Signalling through the Flames), Dead Can Dance (Bird), and Shostakovich.

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#036 -- Tech -- Studies in imperfection including the never ending failure of personal digital assistants to actually live up to inherent promise of the device, and the abject failure of email to be as simple and effective as it should be. Music by DJ Cheb-i-Sabbah, Hallucinogen, Jethro Tull, and Mozart.

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#035 -- SciFi -- The Science Fiction channel, which runs SciFi.com, has decided to shut down their short-story magazine arm, SciFiction. This is a sad day for science fiction writers, and for fans of the short form. It's also just another data point in the decline of the once venerable science fiction short story. However, the decline in readership is balanced by a thriving interest on the part of writers, and some of the very best stuff in the history of the form is being written now. Strange, huh? Background music by The Crystal Method, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Gillian Welch, and The Reverend Horton Heat.

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#034 -- Intelligent Design -- Mainstream scientists deplore intelligent design as unworthy of debate. They dismiss what purports to be a rival to the theory of Natural Selection simply because it looks like creationism in disguise. But serious scientists with serious academic credentials have put their names behind it. Are mainstream scientists being close minded about a valid idea, or do the proponents of the idea really have ulterior motives? And what might such motives be? Bluejack juxtaposes this with a slightly different angle on scientific spirituality, using music from Peter Gabriel, Jeff Buckley (and Leonard Cohen), Gillian Welch, Westbam, Cowboy Junkies, and Mark Mothersbaugh.

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#033 -- Life -- Taking stock of everything: recent shows? How about those clones: You can buy them today. Human-computer integration? Computerized ears, eyes, already in production. How about November? NaNoWriMo, and the next super secret project. But don't forget to Breathe, Bluejack! Let's all breathe together: An interesting connection between Eastern and Western spirituality.

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#032 -- Science -- Why is there any debate about cloning? Clone me, Dr. Memory! The usual rambling discussion of the science, politics, religion, and science fiction of cloning. Background music by PJ Harvey (The Wind) Amon Tobin (Deo) Tom Waits (Dirt in the Ground) Ani DiFranco (Icarus) Infected Mushroom (Unbalanced -- Baby Killer Remix).

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#031 -- Life -- The death march plods on; podcasting is missed; the scientific method applied to spirituality.

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#030 -- Tech -- Before wandering off into a lala land of incoherent software engineering minutiae that will be of very little interest to anyone who doesn't already know the difference between C and C++, Bluejack discusses Microsoft's payoff to Real Networks in a bid to put together an Anti-Apple coalition to take down iTunes. Background music by DJ Shadow (Organ Donor), Timbuk3 (Disn***land), Fatboy Slim (Ya Mama), Sunday All Over the World (Kneeling at the Shrine), Michael Nyman (Drowning by Numbers).

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#029 -- SciFi -- Thinking about the future of man-machine interface. The qwerty keyboard, in case you don't know, is designed to slow you down. But the answer is not a dvorak keyboard... the answer is neural interface. Includes a peculiar sidetrack into the spritual implications of -- and mandate for -- the integration flesh with technology. Background music includes: the ZZ-Top v. Pink mashup, Ani Difranco (Modulation), The Sugarcubes (Blue-Eyed Pop), Beck (Mixed Bizness), Moby (Natural Blues).

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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.

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#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.

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#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.

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#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.

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#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).

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#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.

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#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.

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#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?

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#020 - Life - A couple more stories from life in the tech trenches; listener's emails; plus, overclocked has a phone number: send in your audio comments, your stories, your experiences!

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#019 - Tech - With the launch of Google Talk, we see both an incredible show of chutzpah with the search engine giant taking on perhaps the most oversaturated software market on the net, and another component of GoogleOS delivered under the radar of the major OS players.

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#018 - Science - With the next shuttle launched delayed until (at least) March of 2006, some people are asking about the future of manned space flight in the United States. Who are these people, and what are the questions. More importantly, what are the answers?

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Show #017: Science Fiction has long explored ideas about the next step in human evolution: steps that we will consciously choose; science isn't quite catching up on all fronts, but scientists *are* undermining the very notion of consciousness. With background music from Tom "T-Bone" Stankus, Laurie Anderson, Underworld, Khan, and Gurdieff, plus a clip from a new (old) podcast! Action packed episode!

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#016 - New Audio Equipment - This is an experiment in audio production only. There's virtually no content at all, other than Bluejack's trials and travails trying to figure out how audio cables work. Hopefully this will be the last experimental meta show in the series. It can only get better from here!

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#015: Still waiting for some new equipment, and heads down on a project, but this is a quick podcast on the topic of privacy v. transparency.

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#014 - Tech - This program is a pile of scrap metal, some junk, maybe some gems! NASA shuttle landing; Debian v. Ubuntu v. Fedora v. ?; Bicycle brake pads & cone wrenches; The evils of PHP; Podcasts reviewed; Kind words from listeners; New equipment on order!

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Show #013: Robots! Creepy Japanese Doll Androids! Baizhixing, the Weird Robot Doll (more here)! Furby is Back! Roach Robots!

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#012 -- Life -- Stories from my years at Amazon as may (or may not) pertain to "living beyond the manufacturer's specifications."

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Show #011 - In which Bluejack fails miserably at covering the NASA space launch, and gives you meandering dreck of rambles and rants on the Space program and related phenomena.

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#010: Here's something new... a film review, and of an unlikely gem of a movie, Space Truckers, from 1996 and starring Dennis Hopper. Directed by Stuart Gordon. You would expect a movie with this title to be a bad bit of sci-fi B-movie fluff, and it's all of that except, in my opinion, actually bad.

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#009 -- ::overclocked::World -- President Bush is expected to announce a revision to the United States policy on space-based weapons. We don't know for sure what he will establish, but we know what the Air Force wants. It wants total, exclusive, and perpetual military superiority in space. We examine the benefits, the costs, and the political and scientific ramifications of space-based weapons.

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