Having just mentioned that I prefer transcript to video, let me cite another case where I would make an exception.
Here’s a quote from an IM chat I was having with a Boston pal last week:
(9:15:32 AM) Chris: Friday 7pm
The Singularity: An Appraisal
Alastair Reynolds
Karl Schroeder
Charles Stross
Vernor VingeArguably the idea of the Singularity — a period where change happens so quickly that life afterwards is incomprehensible to people who lived before it — is one of the few entirely fresh ideas in SF in the last forty years. Perhaps it is time for an appraisal. Has the idea of the Singularity been a good thing for SF, providing fresh ideas and stimulating great writing or has the notion that the comprehensibility of the future has a sharp (and near-term) limit diminished possibilities? Has it been a good thing for *your* writing? How about the Singularity in reality — after twenty years does it look more or less plausible that it is lurking in our own real-world future? Discuss the interplay between the idea of the Singularity in SF and actual scientific research. Where are the really exotic ideas coming from?
(9:16:13 AM) Chris: I am jealous that you can attend that this weekend.Man, I hope that panel ends up on YouTube
Well, it didn’t.
It ended up on Vimeo.
If you’re finding the sound a little low there… well, so did I.
So I did a little computer magic to pull out the audio and crank up the volume about 800%. Of course, at that point the audience laughter was annoyingly loud, so I did a bit of manual twiddling to turn down the most significant blocks of that laughter, and threw the whole thing through a bit of filtering to neaten it up.
What resulted was a nice little MP3 where the panel discussion is easily audible, which is suitable to listening to during your commute, or whatever.
