Happy New Year, daring explorers! The year is 2020, the onset of a brave new decade. The next ten years will undoubtedly create new waves in the way we interact with the world around us. In light of these exciting times, we felt it a fitting moment to try changing up our formula a bit.

This time around, Michael Gourlay enters the fold and shares his musings on life, AR and the Metaverse (from a giant beanbag, in a bathrobe, and with a cocktail in hand). An early leader of the HoloLens and Windows Mixed Reality teams at Microsoft, once a general manager of the Altspace VR team, now actively developing future platforms for augmented reality, he brings a wealth of knowledge and insight to this episode. We go spelunking into so many things, from screaming frogs to the Cold War, to tongue gloves and the ultimate composition and texture of the ‘Metaverse’. Together we explore the world through the lens of augmented reality, uncovering an aspirational vision of a future freed from the information confines of our screens.

He was a wonderful guest to have on our show and helped inspire a continuous stream of lively conversation. By the end, the hour was late, and we had far more questions and thoughts than when we started. We raced through so many different topics and domains that we decided to split our recording with Mike into two episodes, so part two will pick up where we left off in our next bi-weekly release.

After stepping back from part one of our convo with Mike today, we’ve revisited the highlights in hopes of adding some helpful context and commentary for you on the juicy bits. We hope you enjoy this special retrospective episode and look forward to your feedback and thoughts, so please reach out with your ideas!

If you want to hear more from Mike, you can find him on Twitter @MiJaGourlay.

Show Notes

PART I - Interview

• Deadwood (HBO show about the Goldrush): https://www.hbo.com/deadwood/movie-what-to-know-so-far
• There: https://there.blog/
• Second Life: https://secondlife.com/
• High Fidelity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ivL1DDwUK4
• VR Chat (And Uganda Knuckles): https://www.vrchat.com/; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJp_3-VZZjI
• AltspaceVR: https://altvr.com/

PART I - Thoughts on Thoughts

• Bose AR: https://www.bose.com/enus/betterwithbose/augmentedreality.html
• Movie “Her”: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1798709/
• Ray Kurzweil book “How to Create a Mind”: https://www.amazon.com/How-Create-Mind-Thought-Revealed-ebook/dp/B007V65UUG
• Aidy Bryant SNL skits: https://youtu.be/aoZXVnz9GPY; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIu5LRZhqcM
• Inside North Korea 360 video : https://abcnews.go.com/International/inside-hermit-kingdom-virtual-reality-journey-north-korea/story?id=35654118
• Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsXVk37bltHxD1rDPwtNM8Q; “The Egg”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6fcK_fRYaI&t=15s
• Hiraeth - It implies the meaning of missing a time, an era, or a person - including homesickness for what may not exist any longer.
• Saudade: A word that describes absence and longing in a state of bittersweet emotion where sadness and happiness mix; the feeling of savoring a sweet flavor that will not return. In Portuguese, “Tenho saudades tuas” (European Portuguese) or “Estou com saudades de você” (Brazilian Portuguese), translates as “I have (feel) saudade of you” meaning “I miss you”, but carries a much stronger tone. In fact, one can have saudade of someone whom one is with, but have some feeling of loss towards the past or the future.
• Dingle Berries Coffee & Tea
• AlfieAesthetics
• Frog Screaming Compilation (with visual)

Recommended Reading

• ”Snowcrash” by Neal Stephenson
• ”Ready Player One” by Ernest Cline
• ”The Pioneers” by David McCullough
• ”Beloved” by Toni Morrison
• ”Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind” by Noah Yuval Harari
• ”American Nations” by Colin Woodard
• Malcom Gladwell books (”Blink” and ”Talking to Strangers“)
• Goodreads Website

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