Podcast 299

Weekend Update! What starts as a weekend update ends up as a romp through the mind of Bob Davis. Oh yeah, this podcast looks at the latest numbers for Clint Eastwood’s winning ‘American Sniper’, and suggests petty Hollywood Envy is perhaps behind much of the snark. The fact that people are getting sub-prime and insanely long auto loans, goosing new car sales and endangering the financial system is a concern of Honda, which says it will not offer 84 month loans, concerned its customers might end up so upside down they won’t be able to buy another car for like, a while. And an Asteroid Fly-By has NASA atwitter since 2004 BL86 (that’s its name) is huge and is coming very close to earth this weekend. Don’t worry, it’s path takes it almost a million miles away from the Earth — well outside the orbit of the moon — but it would be crazy if an asteroid like this one hit the earth, wouldn’t it? Thus begins the listener’s off the rail journey, discussing bad documentaries on Netflix, Nazis and the Final Solution, stories and movies which might include asteroids hitting the earth and turning Minneapolis and Saint Paul into an equatorial (and wonderfully tropical) paradise, aliens living on the moon, or maybe its human beings on the moon ’cause they have a time machine, alien women in spacecraft and more. So. Much. More. Closing it all out, another ice age is on the way since there have been no sun spots and according to scientists, the last time this happened was the 17th century, when people wore ermine collars, and we can’t forget the rich environmentally conscious Davos attendees this weekend, shelling out forty thousand dollars a head to attend this ridiculously useless conference to complain about inequality, and global warming, and rub elbows with Pharrell Williams and Al Gore. Sigh. Get your weekend started right, with the Bob Davis Podcasts. Don’t forget to join Bob Davis this weekend at the SD-61 Chili Dinner AND CONTEST in South Minneapolis, Sunday January 25th. Sponsored by Baklund R&D.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 34:27 — ) | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Podcast 221

The Negative View of Technology. It seems as though the pessimistic view of the world takes precedence these days, especially when it comes to technology and the future. Autonomous machines, robotics, driverless cars, the Internet, smaller (and larger) personal devices are portrayed as the villain. What happened to the formerly optimistic view of the future as portrayed in ‘Star Trek’, the original TV Series? The Hollywood Lens of tech today makes ‘Blade Runner’ look like a romantic comedy! On a beautiful fall afternoon, The Bob Davis Podcasts escapes the bunker for coffee at a ‘joint’ full of hipsters, working on their wireless devices, and portable computers. As technology frees some, apparently it imprisons others. Or so some commentators would have us believe. Do we view the present, and future, too darkly? With technology on most factory floors of the late 90’s vintage, advancements in technology associated with data storage, energy, materials, 3D printing and the like, there’s plenty of room for growth just doing upgrades! It’s time for an optimistic view of what we can do with science, and technology to produce a better country and a better world. What kind of political system, economic policy and foreign policy do we need to unlock and promote innovation and economic growth, while maintaining security. How are we pushing toward the future, while some parts of the world push toward the past? Why do commentators and reporters have a tendency to take something terrible happening in one small part of the world, and turn it into a crisis everywhere? How can we change our thinking about tech and the future? Finally, when will we develop an intuitive and ‘smart’ ATM? One that won’t charge us 4 dollars to get a hundred? Sponsored by Baklund R&D. 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 33:00 — ) | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Podcast 208

On The Road. 2700 Miles from Chicago, Illinois to Phoenix. The first leg of the trip takes The Bob Davis Podcasts from Chicago to the middle of Iowa, and a pouring rain. What is the take away from the IMTS; The International Manufacturing and Technology Show? For people breaking under a steady diet of doom, gloom and alarm from the media … for those who think ‘manufacturing’ in America is ‘dead’, this would have been a very instructive experience. Innovation in America is not dead. A manufacturing and technology show that filled Chicago’s McCormick Center, with big and small businesses from across the globe. The first experience of ‘The Big Trip’ is that innovative things are going on everyday in this country, it’s just that the people who run our media don’t understand any of it. If the United States ever is able to generate dynamic economic growth again there are many innovations that will produce many new products, each of them a revolution in itself. Slow growth means only the big companies have the cash to invest in new technology. It is hard to watch engineers, managers, academics and small business owners spend almost 6 hours in a workshop talking about these processes, and then find out our media has spent all day talking about an NFL player who beat up his wife. Sitting at a  ‘Pilot’ in Western Iowa right now, cursing slow upload speeds, and trying to decide whether to push on to Nebraska, or crash in the front seat of the Crown Vic. Follow the rest of the trip with podcasts everyday from the Road. Chicago to Arizona, and all the buffalo Jerky and Macadamia nuts you can eat! Sponsored by Sedation And Implant Dentistry of Saint Paul. 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 42:30 — ) | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS