On this week's podcast, host Chuck Cage, gets the scoop on SXSW Interactive from Web editor Megan Miller. Marvel over the origins of the Internet! Learn how tech can change the world! Catch Jonathan Coulton's live concert! All that and more, on Cocktail Party Science.

Come the holiday season, some folks have visions of sugarplums dancing in their heads. But if you´re like us, your Christmas dreams tend more toward rows of blinking LEDs and the soothing hum and sweet smell of fresh new electronic gadgetry.

We are currently surveying the field of entrants to our Jonathan Coulton video contest, and will soon announce the big winner! To recap, a month ago, we asked PopSci readers to create their own music videos for Jonathan's song, "I Feel Fantastic" for a shot at winning an 80 GB iPod engraved with JCo's autograph. The resulting videos have ranged from machinima to live-action goodness, with a bit of original Flash animation thrown in for good measure. If you haven't sent in your video yet, HURRY! You have till midnight tonight to come up with something brilliant. Stay tuned for an announcement of the winner and runners up tomorrow.

—Megan Miller

PopSci's official contributing troubadour and podcaster Jonathan Coulton got some major love in the Sunday New York Times Magazine this week as the centerpiece of a story on how musicians are using the Internet to interact directly with their fans in ways that were previously not possible. When he's not interviewing the best and brightest minds of the science world from his PopSci office on the moon or performing at our swanky Future Lounge in Second Life, Jonathan is a full-time, self-supported singer-songwriter. We're all crazy about his tracks here at PopSci (if you haven't heard "Code Monkey" yet, do so at your earliest convenience) and thrilled that Jonathan will probably have an even larger audience to interact with online after this week's piece.

You can read the whole thing online here. And after you're done, why not check out Jonathan's PopSci Podcast and our video coverage of this year's Consumer Electronics Show that also featured Mr. Coulton. And last but certainly not least, find out what being a magazine's "contributing troubadour' actually means by checking out Jonathan's five-track digital soundtrack to 2005's Future of the Body Issue called "Our Bodies, Ourselves, Our Cybernetic Arms," still available for a free download. Great stuff.

Remember when electric cars only went 20 mph and ran out of juice after ten minutes of uphill driving? Those were the days. Steve Schneider is the CEO of a California company called ZAP that sells electric vehicles - not hybrids mind you, real honest-to-goodness electric cars - and it sounds like they might actually be useful for say, driving from one place to another. Even the tiny weird-looking ones are kind of sexy, and the prototype electric SUV he describes may be the perfect vehicle for both road-rage crazed soccer moms and tree-hugging hippies.

Hopefully this is another one of those cases where the environmentally
friendly option doubles as the smart business decision. A few days after I interviewed Steve I actually saw a striped Xebra electric in the wild, so I know he's sold at least one. Fingers crossed—Jonathan Coulton

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Normally, we're not one to toot our own horn, but at yesterday's 2006 Magazine Publishers of America Digital Awards, we walked away with three prizes—more than any other magazine Web site. So, toot-toot! We won the shiny trophy pictured at left in the "Best Online Tool" category for our Best of What's New microsite. Contributing troubadour Jonathan Coulton got well-deserved props with second place in the podcast category for his PopSci Podcast from the Moon. And we also got second place for "Best Sports/Enthusiast Web Site," losing out only to Sports Illustrated's big-budget, big-staff SI.com. Not bad for a bunch of geeks, huh?  —Megan Miller

I read this piece in the magazine a couple of times to make sure I wasn't missing anything before I made the call. Let me get this straight: you put garbage into the machine—any kind of garbage, it doesn't matter—and this thing breaks it down to its component elements, generating only steam, a few harmless byproducts, and a synthetic gas that can be further refined into useful fuels like hydrogen, natural gas and ethanol? And the whole process generates enough energy to keep itself running plus a little extra that you can sell back to the grid? Come on! It sounds way too good to be true—also I'd like one in my kitchen, please. (I have a really big, garbagey kitchen.)

Joseph Longo, whose company, Startech, makes the device, appears to be yet another charming, humble supergenius who's changing the world. What's with these guys? I keep waiting to talk to someone who's doing great things but has a really bad attitude. But no evil genius here. Longo immediately won me over with his story about furry olives, and kept the hits coming with various philosophical musings about the nature of technological change.

Another detail you won't want to miss: the plasma conversion process uses manmade lightning three times hotter than the surface of the sun. Awesome!

—Jonathan Coulton

 
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Dear PopSci readers:

Welcome to yet another of the PopSci blog's fantastic new features!
Every Tuesday, starting now, contributing troubadour Jonathan Coulton
will beam down an episode of his "Podcast from the Moon," along with a
witty commentary on what the heck he was thinking when he called Dr.
So-and-so (always a scientist or investigator featured in this month's issue
of Popular Science) and teased him about his research. Just
click on the "subscribe" button after the post below to get free episodes delivered to
your iTunes account each week.

_______________________________________________________________________________

Do you find it hard to stay away from the Internet for several days at
a time? Do you stay online longer than intended often or very often?
Yeah, me too. I used to have a problem with the Internet, but then I
got a phone that can be used as a Bluetooth modem: problem solved! I said, "Problem solved!" Is this thing on?

This week I rationalize my way out of my addiction to the Web. Some researchers at Stanford University conducted a study to find out whether there is such a thing, and their results suggest that at least some of us may want to scale back a bit. (Hey Agathon of Gorgamosh! Put down the broadsword and pick up your baby, OK?)

Sometimes I think this office-on-the-moon business might work against me. Maybe it's because they're "serious about their work" or whatever, but the scientists who ran the study didn't really want to answer my tough questions or laugh politely at my feeding-tube jokes. Instead I spoke to PopSci contributor Jebediah Reed (who was more than happy to do both) about his take on their results. —Jonathan Coulton

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Im here at CES, camped out with the rest of the PopSci.com team at an envy-inducing sweet spot in the back corner of the pressroom—probably one of about five female reporters in a roiling sea of hundreds of thousands of gadget-loving dudes. Ive spent my entire career working for mens magazines, so being the only chick around isnt a new experience, but the sheer volume of testosterone up in here could drive a girl to wear a burqa. Adding to the vibe are the facts that the Adult Video Awards are coming up this week, and that many of the ladies hanging out in the casinos at night are escorts. So theres this silent question hovering in the air whenever a good-looking girl walks by: Porn star?

Anyhoo, walking the halls today, weve spotted a number of trends, toys, and funny stuff that well be hitting on throughout the week in a series of video posts (Jonathan Coulton and Future Girl Live at CES!) to give you a taste of the Vegas craziness.

My faves among the goodies Ive seen so far today have been 1) the awesomely tiny, full-functioning Model 02 PC from OQO: its about the size of a Sidekick, but it acts like a laptop, and its the first mini computer to run Windows Vista; 2) the Wildcharge conduction plate charger that powers up cell phones and other wireless gadgets wirelessly (right now this device requires model-specific docks for various cell phones, iPods and PSPs, which is less than ideal, but it's a good first-gen version of a breakthrough technology that could become the standard for chargers);  and 3) the Garmin Astro GPS dog tracking device, which lets you connect to several dogs at a time and is meant to help hunters keep track of their retrievers and quarry. The transmitter piece is kind of big and clunky—I wish they'd make a smaller one I could put on my cat to see where he goes on his daily prowls, but at $650, the Astro's much less a toy and more a serious device for locating valuable animals. —Megan Miller

First, way back in 2002, we reported on this crazy new kind of movie-making, called â€machinima,†that uses videogames and virtual worlds as platforms for creating animated films.

One would have thought that after two centuries of existence, something as commonplace
as the nail would be about as good as it's going to get. Try telling that to the man they call
"Dr. Nail."

With a few subtle but ingenious tweaks, Ed Sutt has revolutionized the
nail as we know it. Listen in as podcaster Jonathan Coulton sits down with
Dr. Nail himself to discuss what went into PopSci's 2006 Innovation
of the Year.

Celebrity guests, zombies, nudity, endearing pop ballads, giant squids-our Second Life concert featuring Jonathan Coulton had it all. Relive all the virtual memories of a night of virtual rock in this gallery of highlights. Or see what you missed spending your Thursday night in the "real" world. Suckers!

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