Summary: In this episode, KMO reads more listener email than regular listeners would probably expect to hear. He then takes a short quote from Vernor Vinge and spins it out for half the show talking with Professor Cornelia Butler Flora about the difference between "standard of living" and "quality of life." Guest Cornelia Butler Flora is the Charles F. Curtiss Distinguished Professor of Agriculture and Sociology and the Director for the North Central Regional Center for Rural Development. You can find here bio and CV here: http://www.ncrcrd.iastate.edu/about/people/flora.html The clip I played from Vernor Vinge came from a podcast interview with Cameron Daley which you can find here: http://gdayworld.thepodcastnetwork.com/2007/07/31/gday-world-271-vernor-vinge-sf-author-extraordinaire/ From his Wikipedia Entry: Vernor Steffen Vinge (IPA: [ˈvɪndʒi]) (born October 2, 1944 in Waukesha, Wisconsin, U.S.) is a retired San Diego State University Professor of Mathematics, computer scientist, and science fiction author. He is best known for his Hugo Award-winning novels A Fire Upon the Deep (1992), A Deepness in the Sky (1999) and Rainbows End (2006), his Hugo Award-winning novellas Fast Times at Fairmont High (2002) and The Cookie Monster (2004), as well as for his 1993 essay The Coming Technological Singularity", in which he argues that exponential growth in technology will reach a point beyond which we cannot even speculate about the consequences. You can read Rainbows End for free here: http://vrinimi.org/rainbowsend.html Or if you prefer atoms to bits: Rainbows End Here are the pics that Cannabis King sent of his Burning Man 2007 adventure:
