Stephen Hawking on climate change

The video Pink Terror by Mike Barzman includes a short excerpt from a 2008 Charlie Rose interview with Stephen Hawking.

I like how straightforward Hawking is about climate change (about 48 minutes in).

Charlie Rose: What worries you most about the future of the universe?

Stephen Hawking: I am not worried about the future of the universe. The universe will continue whatever happens. But the future of the human race, and of life on earth, is much less certain. We are in danger of destroying ourselves by our great insensitivity.

CR: What are we not doing to prevent these disasters that we absolutely should be doing?

SH: Not acting with sufficient urgency about climate change.

CR: Do you think we will survive?

SH: Maybe. (smiles)

I went to a public lecture by Hawking at CalTech a few years ago and was blown away by the experience. The first 10-15 minutes I was keeping up, but then suddenly I realized I wasn’t getting the math. The Q & A period was also well over my head, but I was struck by Hawking’s humor and stage presence.

Link via Jason Kottke and Beautiful Decay

Videos · 1 comment · March 8, 2010

TSOYA interviews Ira Glasswww.maximumfun.org

For my Multimedia 1 class tomorrow we’ll be covering audio, looking at interviewing as a form. I’m going to play an excerpt of an interview with Ira Glass from one of my longtime favorite podcasts, The Sound of Young America. I’m most interested in the last part, which starts around 33:38.

MP3 link

As part of the weekly homework assignment we’ll listen to a Studs Terkel piece from Fresh Air.

Link

Audio · Comment · March 1, 2010

The Mac startup sound and Sosumi

A great interview with the former head sound guy at Apple. The intro is in Dutch but the interview itself continues in English.

A gentleman in the comments with a NSFW user icon offers this bit of HTML geekery:

If you look at the Apple’s website source code, the element containing their copyright notice it’s actually called “sosumi”

Link via John Gruber

Videos · Comment · February 26, 2010

Paul Ford on the Harper’s paywallwww.theawl.com

We’re really into the idea of subscribers giving us money in exchange for our product … I honestly, honestly do not say that we are doing it the right way, but I don’t believe people know the right way. We are doing it in an interesting way and we are not spending very much to make that happen.

There’s also a bit about his intention of creating a Metafilter-style community for subscribers. This is a wonderful idea and I hope to join it one day.

Link

Links · Comment · February 4, 2010