Kara Platoni's Blog - Posts Tagged "technology"
Book launch: Mission accomplished!
OK, we're off!
Today is my book's one week birthday, and it's been a really wild and wonderful launch week.
As a first-timer, I wasn't really sure what to expect on a book's official publication date, especially now that thanks to Amazon pre-order a ton of folks had already gotten their copies a week before, and my students were routinely spotting it in bookshops by Thanksgiving weekend. Would confetti drop from the sky? Maybe there would be the sound of trumpets? Or maybe I could just sort of ... lie down for a while?
What actually happened was that a ton of lovely radio interviewers wanted to know more about my book, so I did my very first interviews ... on the other side of the mic. As a reporter, I've long been the person sticking mics into people's faces and asking them to speak slowly and in complete sentences. (And to tell me what they had for breakfast, which is the reporter's sound check staple.) But it turns out that it's really fun to be on the other side of the process, too.
Here are a few of my favorites so far:
"Extending Human Experience" with Krys Boyd on the "Think" show at KERA (Dallas, TX) -- a whole hour of great questions from Krys!
"Sense and Virtuality" on the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC (New York City) -- in which a caller wants to tell us about grafting human skin onto trees. (You can listen here.)
I even got to weigh in on Voice of America's international edition with Susan Yackee!
Note to self for future interviews: Talk slow, don't cough into the mic, nobody can hear you waving at the phone.
Thanks to everyone on Goodreads who has added my book to your to-read list or given it a rating so far! It's been amazing to see it go out into the world, and I hope people are enjoying it.
And if any of you know about grafting skin onto trees ... please tell me!
Today is my book's one week birthday, and it's been a really wild and wonderful launch week.
As a first-timer, I wasn't really sure what to expect on a book's official publication date, especially now that thanks to Amazon pre-order a ton of folks had already gotten their copies a week before, and my students were routinely spotting it in bookshops by Thanksgiving weekend. Would confetti drop from the sky? Maybe there would be the sound of trumpets? Or maybe I could just sort of ... lie down for a while?
What actually happened was that a ton of lovely radio interviewers wanted to know more about my book, so I did my very first interviews ... on the other side of the mic. As a reporter, I've long been the person sticking mics into people's faces and asking them to speak slowly and in complete sentences. (And to tell me what they had for breakfast, which is the reporter's sound check staple.) But it turns out that it's really fun to be on the other side of the process, too.
Here are a few of my favorites so far:
"Extending Human Experience" with Krys Boyd on the "Think" show at KERA (Dallas, TX) -- a whole hour of great questions from Krys!
"Sense and Virtuality" on the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC (New York City) -- in which a caller wants to tell us about grafting human skin onto trees. (You can listen here.)
I even got to weigh in on Voice of America's international edition with Susan Yackee!
Note to self for future interviews: Talk slow, don't cough into the mic, nobody can hear you waving at the phone.
Thanks to everyone on Goodreads who has added my book to your to-read list or given it a rating so far! It's been amazing to see it go out into the world, and I hope people are enjoying it.
And if any of you know about grafting skin onto trees ... please tell me!
Podcasts!
Howdy, everyone!
I've been doing a ton of radio and podcast interviews recently, and I wanted to share two of my favorites so far. I really enjoyed speaking with the interviewers and thought they had great, thought-provoking questions.
Here's the Inquiring Minds podcast interview, hosted by Kishore Hari for Mother Jones.
Listen to the episode for free on SoundCloud.
And here's the Geek's Guide to the Galaxy podcast, hosted by David Barr Kirtley for Wired magazine.
Listen to the episode for free on the Wired website.
Both podcasts are also free to download or stream on iTunes. I hope you'll enjoy them!
I've been doing a ton of radio and podcast interviews recently, and I wanted to share two of my favorites so far. I really enjoyed speaking with the interviewers and thought they had great, thought-provoking questions.
Here's the Inquiring Minds podcast interview, hosted by Kishore Hari for Mother Jones.
Listen to the episode for free on SoundCloud.
And here's the Geek's Guide to the Galaxy podcast, hosted by David Barr Kirtley for Wired magazine.
Listen to the episode for free on the Wired website.
Both podcasts are also free to download or stream on iTunes. I hope you'll enjoy them!
March readings and events
Howdy, friends! Do you like weird news about perception hacking? Would you like to hang out in a room full of smart, curious people? Have you got a free Thursday night? Well, EXCELLENT, because I have some upcoming readings and book events for We Have the Technology that I'm very excited to share ... and for some inexplicable reason they mostly seem to be on Thursdays.
Except this one:
On Tuesday March 1, I'll be at the Long Now's Interval cafe and salon in San Francisco, speaking about transforming perception. We'll have a very special treat for the audience. Show starts at 7:30 PM. More information and advance tickets for sale here.
And then the next couple Thursdays go like this:
Thursday March 3, I'll be in conversation with Epic Magazine's Kelly Vicars at Kepler's Books in Menlo Park. Event starts at 7:30 PM, and tickets are free. You can RSVP here.
Thursday March 10, I'll be doing a reading and signing at the Mechanics Institute in San Francisco at 6 pm. This is a double bill with Abby Smith Rumsey, titled "Potential or Peril? How Technology is Changing Human Perception and Memory." More info and tickets are here.
Thursday March 17, I'll be doing a reading at Books Inc. in Alameda. The reading starts at 7 and admission is free. More info here!
Please come on out if you'd like to hear some stories, ask some questions, or meet your fellow Bay Area sensory perception hacking nerds!
Except this one:
On Tuesday March 1, I'll be at the Long Now's Interval cafe and salon in San Francisco, speaking about transforming perception. We'll have a very special treat for the audience. Show starts at 7:30 PM. More information and advance tickets for sale here.
And then the next couple Thursdays go like this:
Thursday March 3, I'll be in conversation with Epic Magazine's Kelly Vicars at Kepler's Books in Menlo Park. Event starts at 7:30 PM, and tickets are free. You can RSVP here.
Thursday March 10, I'll be doing a reading and signing at the Mechanics Institute in San Francisco at 6 pm. This is a double bill with Abby Smith Rumsey, titled "Potential or Peril? How Technology is Changing Human Perception and Memory." More info and tickets are here.
Thursday March 17, I'll be doing a reading at Books Inc. in Alameda. The reading starts at 7 and admission is free. More info here!
Please come on out if you'd like to hear some stories, ask some questions, or meet your fellow Bay Area sensory perception hacking nerds!
April readings and a couple of podcasts!
Hi everyone, I'm super excited/terrified that on April 25, I'll be speaking at the notoriously raucous Nerd Nite East Bay!
Food (grilled cheese!), drinks and pre-show start at 7 pm; talks begin at 8 pm. We'll be at Club 21, located at 2111 Franklin Street in Oakland, CA.
My talk is called "Perception Hacking for Cyborgs (This Means You)." Also on deck for the night: Stuart Gripman will talk about famous but phony fish and Lori Lambertson will talk about climate change.
Advance tickets are $8; tickets are $10 at the door.
If you'd like to support the Walnut Creek Library Foundation, I'll be one of many Bay Area writers helping host their Author's Gala reception and dinner on April 16. Among the other authors are my pal and fellow brain science nerd Eric Simons ("The Secret Lives of Sports Fans"), former Salon editor David Talbot, and former Golden State Warrior Adonal Foyle.
More information on prices, directions and the silent auction is here.
Finally, a couple of new podcasts!
I had a great time with host Molly Bentley on the Big Picture Science podcast. (Pun-tastic title: Eve of Disruption)
And I loved chatting with Mike, Matt and Alpha the Computer on Robot Overlordz, the podcast with the best name ever.
Are there any science podcasts you love? Let me know -- I'll reach out to them and see if they'd be interested in a chat about perception hacking!
Food (grilled cheese!), drinks and pre-show start at 7 pm; talks begin at 8 pm. We'll be at Club 21, located at 2111 Franklin Street in Oakland, CA.
My talk is called "Perception Hacking for Cyborgs (This Means You)." Also on deck for the night: Stuart Gripman will talk about famous but phony fish and Lori Lambertson will talk about climate change.
Advance tickets are $8; tickets are $10 at the door.
If you'd like to support the Walnut Creek Library Foundation, I'll be one of many Bay Area writers helping host their Author's Gala reception and dinner on April 16. Among the other authors are my pal and fellow brain science nerd Eric Simons ("The Secret Lives of Sports Fans"), former Salon editor David Talbot, and former Golden State Warrior Adonal Foyle.
More information on prices, directions and the silent auction is here.
Finally, a couple of new podcasts!
I had a great time with host Molly Bentley on the Big Picture Science podcast. (Pun-tastic title: Eve of Disruption)
And I loved chatting with Mike, Matt and Alpha the Computer on Robot Overlordz, the podcast with the best name ever.
Are there any science podcasts you love? Let me know -- I'll reach out to them and see if they'd be interested in a chat about perception hacking!
June readings and events
Hi everyone,
I'm very excited for two events coming up -- if you're in the San Francisco Bay Area or Denver, Colorado, I hope you'll join me!
On June 4, I'll be participating in the enormous, wonderful Bay Area Book Festival. I'll be joining author Abby Smith Rumsey ("When We Are No More: How Digital Memory Is Shaping Our Future") for a conversation on the future of consciousness, memory and sensory perception. The discussion will be moderated by Berkeleyside founder, journalist Lance Knobel, and will be a preview for "Uncharted, the Berkeley Festival of Ideas." Our talk goes from 3:15 to 4:30 pm and we're in the Berkeley City College auditorium. More information and advance tickets here.
And on June 8, I'll be giving a talk at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, which some of you might know as the setting for my Chapter #1. The museum is one of the world's leaders in the quest to find a sixth basic taste -- something beyond salty, sweet, sour, bitter and savory (umami.) Through a vast citizen science project, they're testing whether people can also taste ... fat. I'll speak about what happened when they put me through their experiment, as well as some of my other adventures with biohackers, engineers, surgeons and others exploring the cutting edge of sensory perception.
The talk is at 7:00 pm at the museum's Ricketson Auditorium and is $10 for the public or $8 for museum members. More info and tickets are here.
Please come on by if you can, and help me spread the word!
Next stops in my summer book tour: Los Angeles and San Diego in July!
I'm very excited for two events coming up -- if you're in the San Francisco Bay Area or Denver, Colorado, I hope you'll join me!
On June 4, I'll be participating in the enormous, wonderful Bay Area Book Festival. I'll be joining author Abby Smith Rumsey ("When We Are No More: How Digital Memory Is Shaping Our Future") for a conversation on the future of consciousness, memory and sensory perception. The discussion will be moderated by Berkeleyside founder, journalist Lance Knobel, and will be a preview for "Uncharted, the Berkeley Festival of Ideas." Our talk goes from 3:15 to 4:30 pm and we're in the Berkeley City College auditorium. More information and advance tickets here.
And on June 8, I'll be giving a talk at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, which some of you might know as the setting for my Chapter #1. The museum is one of the world's leaders in the quest to find a sixth basic taste -- something beyond salty, sweet, sour, bitter and savory (umami.) Through a vast citizen science project, they're testing whether people can also taste ... fat. I'll speak about what happened when they put me through their experiment, as well as some of my other adventures with biohackers, engineers, surgeons and others exploring the cutting edge of sensory perception.
The talk is at 7:00 pm at the museum's Ricketson Auditorium and is $10 for the public or $8 for museum members. More info and tickets are here.
Please come on by if you can, and help me spread the word!
Next stops in my summer book tour: Los Angeles and San Diego in July!
