{"id":3494,"date":"2010-02-17T01:55:44","date_gmt":"2010-02-17T06:55:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/?p=3494"},"modified":"2010-02-17T01:55:44","modified_gmt":"2010-02-17T06:55:44","slug":"a-singular-discussion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/2010\/02\/17\/a-singular-discussion\/","title":{"rendered":"A Singular Discussion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Having just mentioned that I prefer transcript to video, let me cite another case where I would make an exception.<\/p>\n

Here’s a quote from an IM chat I was having with a Boston pal last week:<\/p>\n

(9:15:32 AM) Chris: <\/strong>Friday\u00a0 7pm
\nThe Singularity: An Appraisal
\nAlastair Reynolds
\nKarl Schroeder
\nCharles Stross
\nVernor Vinge<\/p>\n

Arguably the idea of the Singularity — a period where change\u00a0happens so quickly that life afterwards is incomprehensible to\u00a0people who lived before it — is one of the few entirely fresh ideas\u00a0in SF in the last forty years.\u00a0 Perhaps it is time for an appraisal.\u00a0Has the idea of the Singularity been a good thing for SF, providing\u00a0fresh ideas and stimulating great writing or has the notion that the\u00a0comprehensibility of the future has a sharp (and near-term) limit\u00a0diminished possibilities?\u00a0 Has it been a good thing for *your*\u00a0writing?\u00a0 How about the Singularity in reality — after twenty years\u00a0does it look more or less plausible that it is lurking in our own\u00a0real-world future?\u00a0 Discuss the interplay between the idea of the\u00a0Singularity in SF and actual scientific research.\u00a0 Where are the\u00a0really exotic ideas coming from?<\/p>\n

(9:16:13 AM) Chris:<\/strong> I am jealous that you can attend that this weekend.Man, I hope that panel ends up on YouTube <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well, it didn’t.<\/p>\n

It ended up on Vimeo.<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/center><\/p>\n

If you’re finding the sound a little low there… well, so did I. <\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

What resulted was a nice little MP3 where the panel discussion is easily audible<\/a>, which is suitable to listening to during your commute, or whatever.<\/p>\n

<\/center><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\u00a0 7pm The Singularity: An Appraisal Alastair Reynolds Karl Schroeder Charles Stross Vernor Vinge Arguably the idea of the Singularity —… Read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8,3],"tags":[257,382,197,269],"class_list":["post-3494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-technology","tag-authors","tag-science-fiction","tag-singularity","tag-things-to-watch","xfolkentry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5UQvw-Um","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3494"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3494\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3504,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3494\/revisions\/3504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}