This week in the magazine, Adam Gopnik tries to unravel the science behind our love of music. Here Gopnik talks with managing editor Amelia Lester about how different his own early experiences with music were from those of his children, and why the shift from vinyl and hi-fi to MP3s and earbuds isnt such a bad thing. Also, an epic out-of-office message from S.N.L. writer Colin Jost.
Tagged with “culture”
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Adam Gopnik on 3-D sound studies
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Design Matters - Khoi Vinh
Khoi Vinh is a user experience designer, writer and speaker. For five years, he was the design director at NYTimes.com, where he led the in-house design team in user experience innovation for digital products of all kinds. For over a decade, he has published his thoughts on design, technology and culture at the widely-read blog Subtraction.com. He is the author of Ordering Disorder: Grid Principles for Web Design (New Riders), and he has lectured all over the world on design matters. Previously, Khoi was a co-founder of the award-winning New York design studio Behavior, LLC.
http://observermedia.designobserver.com/audio/khoi-vinh/32528/
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Guardian book club: Iain M Banks on Use of Weapons
As the latest novel in the Culture series hits the bookshops, we look at the third of Iain M Banks’s best-selling SF novels, The Use of Weapons. Known for writing in two separate strands – science fiction and literary novels – Banks explains how the two inspired each other, with the Culture emerging from his work on the first draft of his debut novel, The Wasp Factory.
He also explains the role that a misunderstanding of structuralism played in the construction of his fictional multiverse, and reveals that the dual chronology he uses in the novel was not in fact his idea at all …
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Admiral Shovel and the Toilet Roll
It begins to look as if we might have been wrong. All those predictions driving us forward throughout history have brought us finally to the unexpected realisation that the future is, suddenly, no longer what it used to be. Oops.
http://2012.dconstruct.org/conference/burke/
James Burke is a living legend. Or, as he put it, “No-one under the age of fifty has heard of me and everyone over the age of fifty thinks I’m dead.”
He is a science historian, an author, and a television presenter. But calling James Burke a television presenter is like calling Mozart a busker. His 1978 series Connections and his 1985 series The Day The Universe Changed remain unparalleled pieces of television brilliance covering the history of science and technology.
Before making those astounding shows, he worked on Tomorrow’s World and went on to become the BBC’s chief reporter on the Apollo Moon missions.
His books include The Pinball Effect, The Knowledge Web, Twin Tracks and Circles.
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Camel Country
Camels are the heart and soul of Arabic culture. Biologist Tessa McGregor travels to Oman to hear how they are venerated, even in an age of four-wheel drive and oil-money opulence.
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SXSW 2012: The Ultimate Bruce Sterling Talk
The passionate closing remarks of this visionary thinker are a long-time tradition for SXSW Interactive attendees. Come hear what Bruce Sterling likes (and doesn’t like) about the tech industry and the world at large in 2012.
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Neil deGrasse Tyson On Exploring Cosmic Frontiers
http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/201203024
Many of us spend more time at our desks than anywhere else. Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson takes us into his office at the Hayden Planetarium in New York City for a tour of his office, in the fourth of Science Friday’s Desktop Diaries series. From a Saturn lamp Tyson made as a kid to his van Gogh pillow, Tyson has a lot of universe-themed paraphernalia. Tyson highlights some of his collection, and talks about what his journey to science stardom has been like. (Credits: filming: flora lichtman, christopher intagliata, production: flora lichtman, music tom pascale/beethoven) Viewed 12749 times. See More Videos
In Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson writes of how space exploration — especially human voyages — can profoundly inspire scientists and technologists of the future, and charts the path for missions to Mars and beyond.
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Clay Shirky on Cognitive Surplus
Author, teacher and activist, Clay Shirky, discusses the visionary insights of Marshall McLuhan as well as his own ideas about the effects of new media and social networking on our society. Shirky’s latest book Cognitive Surplus explores how new technology is unleashing a wave of creative production that he believes is transforming the world. Following the lecture, Shirky sits down for an interview with broadcaster Jesse Hirsh. The event was part of the McLuhan 100 series at the International Festival of Authors at Harbourfront Centre.
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DocArchive: Guangzhou - China’s migrant metropolis
China’s economy depends on a system regulating workers from around China and beyond. In Guangzhou, the migrant metropolis, Mukul Devichand hears stories of anger and reform.
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Stephen Colbert Interviews Neil deGrasse Tyson
A discussion about science, society, and the universe with Stephen Colbert, who is out of character, at the Kimberley Academy in Montclair, New Jersey.
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