The Copper Robot talks with Scott Rosenberg, co-founder of Salon.com, about his new book, Say Everything: How Blogging Began, Where It's Going, and Why It Matters.

We talked about the history of blogging, from its early days in the 90s through the "warbloggers" of 9/11, to the national elections of 2004 and 2008. Scott describes how blogging has become a tool for personal expression, political change, and holding the mainstream news media's feet to the fire of public scrutiny. Scott also talks about the history of Salon Magazine, and what social media sites like Facebook and Twitter mean to... read more

Wilson discusses his latest book, Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America, which is the most fun novel you'll ever read about the collapse of Western civilization and the end of religious freedom and democracy in America.

It's an adventure story about the son of pious snake-handling parents in a small town, who leaves home in the company of the nephew of the President of the United States, and goes off to war and New York. The novel has adventure and romance and comedy and sea voyages and rooftop foot-chases and leaping from building to building. It's great fun.... read more

Get it here.

The first version, which I uploaded Sunday, had bad volume problems. I sounded all right, as did guest Michael T. Rose of The Unofficial Apple Weblog. But Gina Trapani, of Smarterware and Lifehacker, sounded a bit distant. And Second Life's ArminasX Saiman, of the shop Electric Pixels and the blog Second Effects, sounded like he had a bad case of the mumbles.

I did the best I could to clean it up, which wasn't enough. After uploading the MP3 to this blog, I mentioned the problem to Mike, and he recommended The Levelator,... read more

Listen to our talk about Apple's springtime announcements at its Worldwide Developers Conference. I talked with three of the best minds in the Apple universe: Gina Trapani, currently author of the blog Smarterware and founding editor of the blog Lifehacker; Michael T. Rose of The Unofficial Apple Weblog, and Second Life's own ArminasX Saiman, owner of the particle store Electric Pixels and author of the blog Second Effects.

We talked about the iPhone 3GS, of course, and how the upcoming Snow Leopard operating system is likely to prove to be bigger than the 3GS. We also discussed... read more

Listen to the podcast of our two-part interview with folks from Linden Lab, the creators and operators of Second Life. In the first part, we talked about new rules governing adult content in Second Life. Our guests were Our guests were Linden Lab general counsel Marty Roberts, deputy general counsel Ken Dreifach, and Cyn Skyberg, VP of customer relations (SL: Marty Linden, Ken Linden, Cyn Linden).

This interview generated a lot of interest, members of the adult content community in Second Life packed the sim and grilled the Lindens with questions.

In the second part of the interview, we talked... read more

The Brazen Careerist, Penelope Trunk, talks with the Coper Robot about career advice for Baby Boomers and Generation X, why people who comment on blogs are jerks, what to do when you're unemployed, the benefits of blogging, and why it's a bad idea to use the phrase "oral sex" in a blog headline.

Penelope is the founder of three startups, most recently Brazen Careerist, a Web service to help companies locate hard-to-find find job candidates.

Prior to Brazen Careerist, Penelope worked at marketing for a Fortune 500 company, played professional beach volleyball, worked on a French chicken farm and... read more

The Copper Robot talks with science-fiction novelist Charles Stross. Charlie has a new novel out -- The Revolution Business, the latest in his Family Trade series. He's also the author of Halting State, a near-future crime novel set in a world where virtual reality and online games have become mainstream, and Accelerando, the story about three generations of a remarkable family experiencing the Singularity, the next stage of human evolution. We talked with Charlie about the premise for the Family Trade novels, politics, computers, and how Bernie Madoff ruined one of his upcoming books.

And don't miss our interview this Sunday... read more

Listen to the Copper Robot's interview with Felicia Day, Sandeep Parikh, and Jeff Lewis, who play Codex, Zaboo, and Vork on the popular Web sitcom "The Guid." We covered a lot of ground: The cast's professional background and work outside "The Guild," whether Sandeep really has an obsessive crush on Felicia, and Felicia's love affair with reading trashy novels on her Kindle.

Listen to our conversation with P.W. Singer, author of Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century, a look at robots and how they're being used on real-world battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan. Singer discusses how science fiction is becoming reality and robots are changing the rules of war right now. We talked about the rapid proliferation of robot warfighters, and who takes responsibility when things go wrong -- as they inevitably do. Singer's previous books looked at corporate warriors, and children being conscripted as soldiers.

Read more about Singer and his book in my InformationWeek... read more

The SS Galaxy's Bill Stirling and DBDigital Epsilon, along with particle wizard Arminasx Saiman, talk with host Mitch Wagner about business and community in Second Life. The Galaxy is a community built into a cruise ship that spans three sims, which almost sank to the bottom of the Linden Ocean this month when it ran out of money; fortunately, an anonymous benefactor arrived at the last minute to keep the ship approach. Saiman runs the particle store Electric Pixels and writes the blog Second Effects; he's one of the most insightful commenters on Second Life business and... read more

Aliza consults with companies on using social media and Second Life for business. This year, she co-founded Conversify, a social media consultancy. In the 90s, she founded the Internet company Cybergrrl, and Webgrrls International, an organization for professional women on the Web that grew to more than 100 chapters worldwide in its first year. She was named... read more