We've got Marketplace's Paddy Hirsch on again to discuss why SOPA is bad for business

Two military discuss our strategy in Afghanistan

We've Launched Decade911 -- it's is a participatory documentary where we stitch together your voices to tell a story about this last decade of global change. We're taking our video cameras into the street and asking anybody and everybody how the decade has affected their lives. Contribute your video tape -- go to decade911.com for instructions.

Today CyberFrequecies continues its Decade911 series by talking to Fauzia Kasuri to get the Pakistani perspective on the last decade of global change since 9/11. Kazuri's the president of the woman's wing of the Pakistani political party Tehreek-e-Insaf.

Whole Foods Parking Lot -- We Like To Watch

Knight Foundation Graduation at Stanford

Who's going to get there first Google, Amazon, Yahoo? Everyone wants a piece of your soul and your data to store in their clouds.

JPL director Charles Elachi discusses the possibility of life in other solar systems that could be more advanced than humans.

Is the record industry suing away all its creativity? Norman Lear's Johanna Blakley says they should take a page from the fashion industry's book.

In this KPCC fundraiser episode we tell you why you should give till it hurts -- and play you a Youtube cover of that song by a guy sitting on a toilet playing the ukulele and drinking Baps. We also revisit the iPad show.

In honor of the world series CyberFrequencies talks to the cast of Cubed -- the raunchy Fox Sports internet show

Natasha Vargas-Cooper is yet another blogger who got a book deal -- they seem to be everywhere these days. Her book is Mad Men Unbuttoned and she gives us her take on the ad men of the 1960's and today.

Dylan Wittkower, author of Facebook and Philosophy, calls The Social Network -- the new movie about Facebook -- a dark creation myth lacking any of the connection and redemption one often associates with New Media and social networking.

Dishing it up on the show are KPCC's Molly Peterson and CyberFreak alum Jackson Musker. Wittkower talks about his students not having a problem with Facebook mining their personal info -- likes and dislikes -- to sell them ads. Twenty-five-year-old Jackson agrees. If companies find out he likes basketball and put ads up shoes ads accordingly on his Facebook page -- all the better. Molly finds this disturbing, and I just plain don't know what to think!

Perhaps Facebook's creator, 26-year-old Mark Zuckerberg, is a misanthropic corporate overlord hacking away at our privacy, or perhaps his particular brand of genius just hit the zeitgeist -- either way I doubt I'll be getting off Facebook anytime soon. Molly, Jackson and Queena say they will...but I'd like to see them prove it.

Futurist, author and Inventor Ray Kurzweil wants to live long enough to live forever -- he talks about the singularity -- a time in the not too distant future when mind and machine merge and we can store our brains in the big computer in the sky. Johanna Blakley, Deputy Director of USC's Norman Lear Center weighs in, and Jaron Lanier shows up again this week to add: I'm just bored to tears by the global mind -- it's the dullest mind on earth.

Jaron Lanier's "You Are Not A Gadget: A Manifesto" is a book by one of the founding fathers of virtual reality, who takes on what's become conventional wisdom about Web 2.0, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Wikipedia -- where we upload ourselves to fit into small boxes that companies like Facebook have created to sell us ads.

We visit the Craigslist Foundation Bootcamp to see who's who in the non-profit tech world -- and dish about it after with KPCC's Molly Peterson. We've got 1-800-Jesus Christ, If I Ran the World, and the Texas Tribune -- a new business model for local news.

We're not above a little gossip and speculation -- Adrian Lamo talks about the "velvet espionage ring" surrounding Wikileaks...shhh, don't ask don't tell

L Word Creator Ilene Chaiken is launching The Real L Word. CyberFrequencies talks with her about the changing face of television, fan involvement, and creating new paradigms.

CyberFrequencies turns a Year old. As a celebration we're repeating of one of the first CyberFrequencies with Scott Simon interview that we did a year ago. His cyber wish: To get beamed up!

It's a brave new world. At tech conferences, experts are talking about "total connectivity." That's right, we'll be connected to digitally 24-7. Is that where we're going?

Kids seem to think so and in fact, some of them might already be living in total connectivity. And kids like Nico Young are also doing amazingly creative things online that draw audible gasps from adults.

Where goes the future? Who knows.

What we do know is that the computers, the Internet and technology is becoming indispensable to our work lives. Ever had a black out at work? The whole place shuts down.

At the same time, many of our public school classrooms aren't wired. Teachers are lucky to have one computer to a classroom. Kids in lower socio-economic neighborhoods have a hard time getting a consistent wi-fi connection. When those kids step out of high school will they be prepared for the 21st century work force?

We asked Crenshaw High School Teacher James Altuner and the Gates Foundation's Adam Porsch to talk about that digital divide... between where the kids (and the world) are with technology and where many of our public schools are.

This is an archival picture of MacArthur Park in Los Angeles, where the ladies in a multimedia projected called "The Entryway" are holed up.

The Entryway is the subject of this week's podcast where you can hear columnist Gustavo Arellano and blogger Susannah Breslin debate The Entryway. It's a story of two LAs.

We talk to Diana Grove, author of Dot.Conned. The book is basically a series of emails. When Grove got a scam email, she didn't hit delete. Instead, she took on a number of wacky characters - a cult leader, quack doctor, etc... - and tried to con the con man. CyberFrequencies Avatars John Rabe and Karen Fritsche do a dramatic reading of one of the exchanges in the book.

Ann Minch shot the video heard around YouTube. After Bank of America jacked up Minch's credit card interest rate, she declared that she's not paying them another cent. Minch's reasoning: the big banks are borrowing money from the Feds (or us taxpayers) at next to nothing and then turning around and charging us more on our credit cards.

Sounds like a good idea but is it? We ask Marketplace's Paddy Hirsch, a senior editor at the public radio show. Hirsh is also the impresario behind the Whiteboard, a video tutorial about the banking crises.

Ray Bradbury wrote the musical “Wisdom 2116” for an old couple he’d befriended as a young man. And it’s taken Bradbury more than 50-years to see the musical performed on stage. “Wisdom 2116” is a love story about the secret to staying young!

We also spoke to the legendary science fiction and fantasy writer at his home in Los Angeles. He tells us about writing Fahrenheit 451 and the secret to living forever!

In the words of the Wall Street Journal, "The last time there was this much excitement about a tablet, it had some commandments written on it."

Tanya talks to folks at the Glendale Galleria and it appears that the Wall Street Journal wasn't too far off. Even with unemployment hitting record highs in the state, folks couldn't wait to plunk down their $500 and get one.

We dish with KPCC's Molly Peterson about the hype.

Everybody keeps asking, "Are you going to buy it?"

But I think the real question is "What does it replace?" Not the cell phone, not the iPhone since there's no camera, video or audio recording devices, and not the laptop because you can't multitask or do word docs.

Jaron Lanier's book "You Are Not A Gadget: A Manifesto" is all the buzz on the web this week.

Lanier, one of the founding fathers of virtual reality, takes on what's become conventional wisdom about Web 2.0, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Wikipedia -- which all add up to what he calls hivemind.

Lanier spins out a dystopic future of a time when individuals upload everything they know to create what the "lords of the computing clouds" believe will be perfect knowledge.

According to Lanier, Web 2.0 rests on the ideology that the universe is made of computations and if we digitize our lives, we'll attain eternal life.

Happy New Year! We're on cruise control over the holidays and so bring you this encore edition of CyberFrequencies!

Who's taking the place of the alternative weekly?

It used to be that if you wanted to find something sorta arts and cultur-y to do, you'd pick up an LA Weekly and look for the "Pick of the Week." Now, I look in my inbox and find Flavorpill's picks.

Flavorpill is a chain of weekly e-newsletters that tell you about art and culture happenings. There's a Flavorpill London, New York, Chicago and San Francisco. It's one of a growing number of online media outfits that are trying to fill the editorial void when it comes to the local art and culture scene.

To ring in the New Year, we hang out with Flavorpill LA's Shana Nys Dambrot and Tanja Laden and ask them "What's on your browser?"

You've heard of the Rosetta Stone? What about the Rosetta disk? It's a coaster-size disk that's got more than one-thousand of the world's languages and it's designed to last 10,000 years! The Rosetta Project's Laura Welcher explains the challenges of designing a Rosetta Disk that'll last 10,000 years and how the Rosetta disk will be a key for future.

Texting in school? Posting to Facebook for extra credit?

Executives can’t imagine meetings without a blackberry. Companies are embracing Facebook to market their goods. And still, computers are scarce in most schools and cell phones aren’t allowed.

This week CyberFrequencies talks to educator Robert Torres, who says that schools must be on the cutting edge of technology to engage students. Torres is chief research officer at Quest to Learn, a gaming middle-school opened in Manhattan this fall.

My Dear CyberFreaks,

There comes a time when you have to make a stand. And this week, we're making ours with Ann Minch and her Debtor's Revolt.

Last week, the Pew released a study surveying the credit card policies of a dozen banks, who together control about 90 percent of credit card debt in the US. Many of these banks got our bailout money or are borrowing our money from the Feds at extremely low interest rates.

So, how are they repaying us taxpayers? They're jacking up the interest rates on our credit card - no questions asked.

Ann Minch got the treatment from Bank of America, which notified her that they're raising her interest rate from 13 to 30%. And so she posted a video on YouTube, which she hopes will become the shot heard around the world.

Minch's solution to bring down the big banks? Take your money out of them and put them in credit unions and community banks.

We dish about Minch's ideas with Marketplace Radio's Senior Editor Paddy Hirsch. We ask Paddy, does Minch make sense or is she wack?

Is Dan Bull's song the manifesto of a movement? Or part of a misguided trend?

As text shrinks to tweet-sized bytes, poets have taking their art--in all its brief beauty--to the web. Brooklyn writer Tao Lin turns instant messenger conversations into dystopian lyrics. And poetry professor Katie Peterson tweets "to frame her soul."

But does this poetic populism cheapen the art? Local poet and programmer Robert Peake joins the discussion as the writers parse the meaning of "poetry" in today's media-saturated environment.

This week on the podcast we perform a Bing Vs. Google Face-Off. It's the CyberFreaks Browser review. Listen to the dish. And check-out CyberFreak Jackson Musker's take on Bing.

By absorbing Yahoo's fan base, the bulked-up Bing is slated to control 30% of the market and in its wildest dreams loosen Google's 65% stranglehold. (Confused? Mashable makes sense of the merger.)

My dad's a Chicago Cubs fan and so I'm an unabashed underdog lover. I relish every late-season flame-out by the Red Sox, the Yankees, and the Cardinals. In the search world, Google is all three franchises rolled into one...and more. I should be marking the days on my calendar 'til the upstart Bing smites the great Googliath.

But I can't. This merger stinks. In spite of my underdog love, I find the deal inelegant and unoriginal, and I hope it turns out worse than the Washington Nationals.

Here's my sports-fan's take on the merger: Two teams, neither of which is very skilled, have pooled their best players and their owners' money. They now have nine good players but no chemistry, no history, and no loyalty.

Google earned its place as the champion of search engines through its clean design, thorough search results, and fun aesthetic (like its ever-morphing logo).

Even if the re-conceived Bing rocks "on the field," I'm not sure I'd use it. I have little respect for companies and sports teams (I'm talking to you, George Steinbrenner) who buy and trade their way to the top, rather than rising through their own innovations and talents.

I believe in fan loyalty. I've survived a Century of Cub-tastrophes, a Dodger Drought, and Duke Football. But I'm a Google devotee now, more than ever. Long live the king.

Facebook has been in the news a lot lately. It bought FriendFeed. Netscape developer Marc Andreessen backs a browser that might couple with Facebook. And Facebook "friended" the Huffington Post.

What's it all mean?

Wired Magazine writer Fred Vogelstein says: Internet Domination by Facebook.

And we ask Arianna Huffington about the HuffPo's new relationship with Facebook.

The Awesome New Republic is part of a generation of musicians who never really grew up dreaming of signing with a big label and selling a million records. In fact, their business is to give it away for free. Also, CyberFrequencies' Queena Kim and Tanya Jo Miller dish up Fortune Magazine's Tech Conference.

We take summer reading digital with KPCC's Molly Peterson, who tries the Kindle DX on the beach. The Kindle held up but Molly and I didn't do so well!

Then we talk to Justin Gawronski the high school senior who's suing Amazon for nuking 1984 from his Kindle. Justin took
notes on the Kindle but now they're meaningless and so he has to re-read the book for homework!

CF's co-host Tanya Miller says "Suck it up and do the homework again!" What's the big deal?

What do you think?

If you didn't get a chance to listen to Weekend Edition Saturday, Tanya and I were interviewed by Scott Simon. We'll post the link to the Weekend Edition interview with CyberFrequencies (they don't have the sound up yet). But in the meantime, here's Scott Simon's guest appearance on CyberFrequencies.

This Week: iCarly, Make Way For The Byte Star... Forget the Big Screen - kids these days want to be stars on the Web. Seven-year-old Ocelotl and five-year-old Lola show us why iCarly is the most popular kid's show on TV. And their tribute web show iOla debuts on CyberFrequencies. And Kindergarten teacher Maria Knee tells us why she teaches her students to blog and how it's all a part of making them better 'net citizens.

We talk to Shannyn Moore, the Alaskan blogger Sarah Palin threatened to sure for "defamation" along with the NYT, HuffPost, Washington Post and MSNBC. Moore says she's a "private citizen" and when Governor Palin named her, she put a civilian in the cross-hairs. Unlike a NYT Reporter, she doesn't have a big paper defending her against lawsuits. And unlike Politicians, she can't call just ring the security detail when she gets threatening, ugly notes. She says she's gotten up to a thousand hate emails since Governor Palin named her. She reads us some of the "tamer" ones.

The Legalization Debate Goes Digital. We go on a ride-along with medical marijuana delivery man Dann Halem, who had his minute of fame on Gawker for using Twitter to sell his goods. Halem is part of an emerging movement of medical marijuana distributors who're promoting the idea online that Marijuana can save the world, or at least balance government budgets. We also talk to somebody in Andrew Sullivan's Cannabis Closet.

Has the day of the Superstar Blogger arrived? After reading that Nikki Finke sold her blog Deadline Hollywood Daily for $14 MILLION BUCKS in The Wrap, I made a few calls. My first call was to Finke, to congratulate her. And then, I dialed up Gawker’s Gabriel Snyder to ask, “Hey Gabe, CyberFrequencies is starting a blog, can you tell us how we can get our pay day?” Snyder shot back, “The fact that that number is being tossed around is just absolutely absurd…

In the wake of the Iranian elections, the blogosphere is gloating. They claim Twitter has upstaged CNN as the 24-hour news source. Guest-host Molly Peterson tells us why Twitter is so compelling and interviews Tony Award winning lyricist Brian Yorkey, who's tweeting his hit Broadway musical Next To Normal.

This week, we bring you a beat boxing competition on YouTube. Take a listen, believe me, Beat Boxing has come a LONG way. To see the Beat Boxing videos got to CyberFrequencies

This week on CyberFrequencies we sneak behind the Great Fire Wall. We talk Natalia Morar and Elena Zgarden, twenty-something activists in Moldova who organized a flash protest that drew 15,000 people. They talk about the digital divide between old and young in that Eastern European country. China Digital Times founder Xiao Qiang takes us behind the great fire wall and Daniel Hernandez predicts the swine flu fall out.

This Week on CyberFrequencies, the Net Gets a Bad Case of the Swine Flu. We visit Mexico City blogger Daniel Hernandez, who tells us some people aren't as scared of the swine flu as they are of the federal government.

The Twitterer-in-Chief for the American Public Health Association spins out the best and worse case scenario of a pandemic in the age of Twitter.

And we bring the CyberNews and ask: Who's responsible for the Craigslist killing?