Always now and yet again

The human age, the belle époque, the glided age, the 90s, the return of the sex, the cellophane culture, the faceless societies, the Russians, the biases, and the fallacies. And yes, we don't do good grammar, but we do Oxford commas (when we can). In this episode Felix and Aleksey continue thinking about the end of 2010s, discussing things behind, and things ahead.

As the last decade of 2010s begins, Felix and Aleksey reflect on 2018 and make their lists. The best, the worst, and the macabre. All together in a single form. Impossible to distinguish one from another. From Parkland shooting to Facebook, from Fox News to Plastic straw bans, from Star Wars to Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez. The undecidables, the naive, and the opinionated come together in this glimpse-at-their-lives issue. Tune in for 2018 at a glimpse in this regular mix of the banal and the insightful. And yes, we know, almost everyone made their lists in December and has already moved on. But since we are at the forefront of progress here -January is the time. Bear with us. Or not. As always, you have no choice.

In this final episode of 2018 Felix and Aleksey pose 3 key questions to the XXI century. What is us if not our bodies? How can we co-exist with people who are different from us? And most important of all - what is the way to live in a sustainable manner? Colonialism, eurocentrism, tech obsession, politics, 90s, past and family bonds make the gist of this season finale. What is government in the XXI century? What can we learn from denazification of Germany? Why hackathons are our biggest hope? As Aleksey contemplates running for the president of Russia in 2024, we finish the year with questions, answers and a little bit of Jurassic Park. Scary in the dark. I'm so scared that I'll be eaten.

What happens in between the claps? Aleksey goes to Hawaii to get discouraged by colonialism. Felix attempts a change of bi-directional relationships. What is life if not consumption? What is media if not manipulation? America's public spaces. Hula dances, Halibut, SPAs. Candies from strangers. The unbearable lightnesss of being. Binary choices. State executives. If you are still out there, listen to Felix making a passionate ask of you in the very end. We'd love to have you. This public broadcast was paid by tax money.

The geometry of buildings, architects that don't give a damn, what do designers actually create? In this episode Felix and Aleksey further dive into the debate of experiences vs environments. Why all experiences are a fad, and environments are the next big thing. Aleksey learns what it actually takes to produce an iPhone, gets scared by capitalist scale of production, while Felix challenges ecosystems and their physicalities. In this episode the pair of brave explorers of non-sense further define humanities next frontier. Or not. You never know till next episode.

Horrible manufacturing. The system. The tyranny of sharing economy. A very long Lyft ride. Avocados from Sweden. Africa won the World Cup. Sustainability rider. 5 Earth globe emojis. In the 2nd Season Premier of the highly acclaimed podcast series Felix and Aleksey return to the tactless, the factless, and the banal. Focused on global issues, politics and culture, this season is all about things beyond technology. Brought to you by Theranos. Empowering people everywhere to become fraudulent CEOs.

Layers of customization for essential needs. Transition from experiences to environments. IKEA as the most important company for the next decade. UN dreamt up by Balenciaga. Ridicule. Opinions. Barely functioning mics. Our two hosts return for Episode 4, where they debate whether we need architecture, if human rights are better served as slogans on t-shirts and whether our environments define who we are far more than the products that we are surrounded by. We almost made it within 20 minutes this time, Christina!

What if we didn`t have our bodies? In this episode two advanced amateurs Aleksey and Felix go beyond their assigned bodies to uncover the economy of dreams, ageism, and new peripherals. After a small hiatus (we were too irresponsible to record anything), Netflix extends Always Now and Yet Again for the 2nd season for you to discover shallow new realities, get disappointed with movies and Ready Player One, and put an end to all desires. After all Aleksey turns 30. This, plus transgender rights, bodies, identities, and more. Our brains are fried.

As tech seduces us to explore new realities by putting blind folds of VR headsets on our eyes, Felix and Aleksey have nothing else to do but advance their unquenched quest for truth, illumination and half-drunk smart-assesness. What is real life if not a simulation? What are products if not gifts from heaven? How does one construct reality? And is VR and MR an illusion of it or reality itself? #WhatBlackPanterMeansToMe? Why men should wear lipstick? Why are we even discussing this? As our industry keeps unabashedly denying any critical thought to the products it is producing - this short (we managed to keep it less than an hour) talk dives deeper into the cultural underpinning of the ARs, MRs, and VRs. References with no referents. Immerse yourself in new reality. And yes, we changed the name of this talk after we published it. Just because we can.

To predict futures after Simpsons is barbaric. That's why we could barely hold it when we heard Ten Year Futures by Ben Evans. So yes, most under-informed and over-opinionated podcast of 2018 returns for its first episode. And we are ready for the challenge. 12 years futures! A full decade! All for the price of 10! Take that Silicon Valley. AI! VR! Autonomous driving! Machine learning! And most importantly - New Sincerity. New Dynamics. New Language. And may be even the End of Self. If you are still into technology, culture and making sense of it all - join us as Felix and Aleksey generalize our world, unearth biases and slide into the mystique, and the sublime. And no, Aleksey is not recording this in the toilet. He just got new AirPods. And well, you get what you get.

Where Felix and Aleksey discuss what this podcast series will be all about. Also, we meet Bill Baxton, explore insular futures, get scared by the monopoly of technologists, uncover money laundering for human biases and ponder upon what makes us human. With a bit of Stockholm, Seattle, #MeToo and trash politics. Bear with us as Felix's beard scratches the mic. Plus, apparently there's no more WordArt in PPT online, so our cover looks the way it does.