Future Salon

Webcasting is back at the Future Salon Tonight

Even if you are not in the Bay Area, or can't be bothered to get off your 'puter, you still can participate tonight at the fabulous Space Elevator Future Salon via video and IRC chat. Webcasting is back at the Future Salon.

Point your Quicktime player to the following address:
rtsp://207.105.30.90/salon.sdp

Chat as always:
Server: irc.freenode.net
Channel: #futuresalon

Talk to you tonight, Mark.
(Ryan is moderating, so I may have some time to chat.)

Update: Picture just taken from the video stream.

Really Far Out Emerging Tech at the Future Salon

Sporadically I blog on the O'Reilly Network. Mostly about Emerging Technology and Future Events, some about SAP too.

Now I thought that our Space Elevator is right up their alley and created the Really Far Out Emerging Tech at the Future Salon post.  Turns out they changed their model and within their new categories they are not covering Emerging Technology anymore. The answer they were giving me was, that theme is covered on O'Reilly's radar and that is a bit an elitist circle of 6 people that can post there. I begged them to open up an emerging tech category for a lay person like me, so far to now avail and so my post is in limbo land and you can only stumble upon it via my O'Reilly blogger page.

This is why I post the content here as a reminder for you regarding our event on Thursday:

Far out Emerging Tech as in going life in 11 years and 306 days from today. Really far out as in 100,000 km (62,000 mile) out into space. I remember late night conversations after Future Salons where some of the more-out-there Saloners would marvel over Dyson Spheres and Space Elevators. Accelerating Change and all (or is it just some Internet riches) makes it viable to built one now, or well within the next 11 years. The Dyson Sphere will take a bit longer, but the LiftPort Group is a funded company that is working on nothing else but building a Space Elevator. (It may be only a front to sell books about it and get on the future conference circus or was that circuit :-)

Personally I think there are some problems down here on earth that we should tackle first. O.K. there is the famous meteor that may wipe us out any minute. To spread ourselves a bit in our solar system would do us good in that regards. Although shouldn't our focus be on creating an early warning system and destroying the meteor, changing its course, or even better harvest the iron or whatever it is made of for use on earth? Well, to do that efficiently we could really use the help of a Space Elevator. Makes sense to me.

Please join us at the Space Elevator Future Salon next Thursday 22nd of June where Michael Laine , president and founder of LiftPort will present his vision and answer all your skeptics questions.

In Silicon Valley one gets a bit jaded by all the cool stuff that gets presented here every other day it seems, but a company seriously working on a Space Elevator is something special.

Details: Thursday, June 22. 6-7 Reception, 7-9 Presentation and Discussion
SAP Labs Building D, 3410 Hillview Ave, Palo Alto, CA 94304

As always the Future Salon is free and open to the public, please RSVP so we can order enough food and drinks for the reception proudly sponsored by SAP.

See you on Thursday, Mark.

What a relief ...

I remember getting Men are from Mars ... during it's hype time. (Interesting that today's first 5 most helpful comments on Amazon are all one star. Seems there is intelligence after all)

Never before have I thrown a book across the room. I did it 1/3rd through because it was so full of lame stereotypess and platitudes. I still can't believe how successful it was.

In comparison what a relief is Joe Quirk's book Sperm is from Men Eggs are from Woman. He is by the way a Future Saloner from our first session over 4 years ago and once told me that Bonobos solve conflicts through sex:

Sex, it turned out, is the key to the social life of the bonobo ... First, anything, not just food, that arouses the interest of more than one bonobo at a time tends to result in sexual contact.

Just think about how the world would look like if humans would develop the same pattern.

Back to Joe's book, where he presents just the scientific proven facts in a very funny and entertaining way. These are interesting enough. 

Joe speaks in as he calls it the greatest bookstore in the world: Book Passage: 

Event details: Book Passage Monday, June 12, 7 PM. Joe Quirk event in the Gallery, featuring sperm.  Children welcome. 51 Tamal Vista Blvd., Corte Madera, CA 94925 415-927-0660 (Corte Madera) 415-835-1020 (SF) 800-999-7909 (more)

We are trying to get him to present at one of the upcoming Future Salons too. That is going to be a real funny one.

Space Elevator Salon Thursday June 22

Thursday, June 22. 6-7 Reception, 7-9 Presentation and Discussion
SAP Labs Building D, 3410 Hillview Ave, Palo Alto, CA 94304

RSVP Here

Seen as merely a thought experiment for over a century, the space elevator is now understood to be achievable in our foreseeable future. It promises to open up the Solar System to all of humanity, and this salon will give you a peek at that future.

The LiftPort Group (LPG) is dedicated to building a mass transportation system to open up access to the inner solar system. The Space Elevator will be at the heart of this revolutionary transportation service. By opening up broad-based access to Earth orbits and the inner solar system, LPG will help bring about the creation of entire new markets. Based in space commerce, these new markets can only become viable through safe, inexpensive, routine access to the inner solar system. LiftPort Group believes that development of the space elevator is a crucial step in the future of Earth and space.

Our guest Michael Laine, president and founder of LiftPort, is turning a lifetime interest in space into a professional venture. Laine brings more than 15 years of business management and development experience for the technology, financial services and military markets, with the past four years devoted to space technology and development.

Michael is co-author of a recently released book called Liftport: Opening Space to Everyone, from which he'll be drawing for this talk.

For more information, check out the  biography of Michael Laine , the web page of the LiftPort Group, or the Amazon description of Liftport: Opening Space to Everyone

Or contribute to the discussion on the Future Salon Wiki.  Looking forward to seeing you all on the 22nd!