Aug 14 2011

They had a camera there!

Categories:

Personal

by PZ Myers

I guess you lazy people who didn’t travel to Oslo still get to see me: here’s my talk at the World Humanist Congress.

(Also on Sb)

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41 comments

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1

Brian

14 August 2011 at 9:54 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Emma B believes!
2

Non-Biblical Paul

14 August 2011 at 10:19 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Jeez. He wins an award for humanism and then he turns around and calls me “lazy”. I’ll remember that when I win my humanism award.
3

'Tis Himself, OM

14 August 2011 at 10:21 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

It wasn’t laziness that kept me away from Oslo. I’m wanted for littering and creating a nuisance there, so it’s not safe for me to travel to Norway.
4

enlightend

14 August 2011 at 10:32 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Hi PZ, would it be possible to upload it to YT?

The UStream flash app is highly buggy and 2 out of my 6 PC’s here make Chrome lag like a crazy mofo with only audio and frozen video.

Thanks :)

Listening to your, likely to be awesome, talk now :)
5

Don Quijote

14 August 2011 at 10:40 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I think I´m still wanted for burning some Norwegian wood.
6

A3Kr0n

14 August 2011 at 10:44 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I don’t know what the hell just happened. I was at a different computer, and UStream didn’t work. Pharyngula, with the popups and hair replacement coupon, among other things, was looking like a 3rd rate pr0n site. THEN the browser kept crashing, and the anti-virus would pop up saying a trojan was trying to install a keylogger! I couldn’t get anywhere, the computer said it was infected. I did a hard reboot, and logged into home to let you know what happened.
7

Otranreg

14 August 2011 at 10:44 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Agree with enlightend. The ustream page is obscenely slow: it devours 100% of my CPU time, I can’t watch the video, and scrolling from top to bottom takes a couple of minutes. (have tried it on Firefox and Opera)

Is there a chance of seeing the talk somewhere made by people with brains in their heads?
8

machintelligence

14 August 2011 at 11:22 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Strange. Nothing but the ads seemed to be working, then Norton antivirus kicked in and yanked me out of the site with an intrusion warning.
9

Quincyme

14 August 2011 at 11:29 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

YouTube or QuickTime, please. iPhones not included. :(
10

Otranreg

14 August 2011 at 11:31 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Yeah, it’s the player: I’ve cut off all the junk they have on the page and it’s lagging still.
11

Marshall

14 August 2011 at 11:59 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

BARNACLE PENIS!

Great job professor, I’ve always been more interested in interesting social and co-operative developments from evolution than the more popular ‘BIGGER TEETH! FASTER PREDATORS! SNEAKIER PREY!’ stuff, so this was right up my alley. Thank you sir!
12

A3Kr0n

14 August 2011 at 12:33 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Now that I’m home I see UStream is bogging my whole computer down. I don’t remember it doing that before. It doesn’t do that on another channel. Of course, I had to suffer through a full volume commercial until I turn off the computer by throwing it out the window…
BTW: If I haven’ said it lately, FUCK USTREAM!
13

nemo the derv

14 August 2011 at 12:38 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

tis @3
Sounds like you have quite a story to tell :)
14

Grrr...

14 August 2011 at 12:43 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

You can download the video here:
http://ustream.vo.llnwd.net/pd17/0/1/16/16613/16613244/1_9033463_16613244.flv

and play it in VLC or some FLV player.
15

Nerd of Redhead

14 August 2011 at 12:58 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I always try to download these files. That way, I can watch it in peace, not subject to the vagaries of the bandwidth.
16

Audley Z. Darkheart OM, purveyor of candy and lies

14 August 2011 at 1:21 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Lazy??

I didn’t have someone send me a ticket, PZ. :P
17

sjefskjekkasen

14 August 2011 at 1:23 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

@Grrr

thanks a bunch!
18

Skepgineer, rusty knife of a thousand porcupines

14 August 2011 at 1:48 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

The same group of fundagelical creationist muslims that crashed the Dublin atheist conference is doing this one also and spamming #humanist2011 on twitter with godbottery.
19

Capri

14 August 2011 at 1:50 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Hi PZ Myers,

Thanks for posting the video.I am anxious to watch it but there is a problem: every 2-3 sentences there is a 5 min silencing period. Are you talking in a solid RNA interference context, or is it just my computer? Please, let me know if there is any trick and how to correct it. Thanks
20

Midnight Rambler

14 August 2011 at 2:59 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Damn, wish I had read the comments before trying to watch; that site is seriously bad.
21

BertieB

14 August 2011 at 3:13 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Site crashed my Firefox as well.
22

Nerd of Redhead

14 August 2011 at 3:36 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Site crashed my Firefox as well.

Down load the file. There are several Firefox addons that do the job. I used RealPlayer Downloader. Watching it on VLC at the moment.
23

Midnight Rambler

14 August 2011 at 4:36 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I downloaded it from Grrr’s link, but FTR, what addon(s) work? I have DownloadHelper, but it worked the ad but not the video itself (and the site crashed Firefox after playing only about 10 seconds, so I didn’t have much time to figure it out). RealPlayer is one of the most evil pieces of software out there, so I’m not putting that on.
24

llewelly

14 August 2011 at 5:08 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

ustream is a giant piece of garbage and every attempt I’ve ever made to play a video using it has ended in failure. This effort has been no different.

On the whole I would really appreciate it if people would post video and audio as seperately downloadable files, rather than relying on generally awful and incompetently developed technologies like adobe flash.
25

Elwood Herring

14 August 2011 at 5:39 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Watching it now, thanks for the download link. Not much to see though; PZ is a dark blurry blob, and only the bottom quarter of the screen behind him can be seen. It might as well be audio only. But there’s three hours of it! The sound is generally good, at least it is after everybody has settled down and stopped scraping the chairs across the floor (well that’s what it sounds like).
26

early_cuyler

14 August 2011 at 5:58 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Good audio, but Wow, can we get these things recorded with somewhat professional equipment? This looks like it was done with a pink Barbie camerafone!
27

OakWind

14 August 2011 at 6:02 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Can someone work out the other video links?
28

Midnight Rambler

14 August 2011 at 6:18 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Also, not only does it seem to be in the wrong aspect ratio, but switching it to any standard one doesn’t fix the appearance; it’s 16:9 but apparently the correct AR is actually wider than that. WTF?
29

Species8472

14 August 2011 at 6:20 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

PZ’s talk was one of the talks in one of 3 parallel session on the Saturday. Unfortunately these talks were in the smallest auditorium and the camera was located in a very awkward spot very close to the front and was mostly unattended. So yeah, the quality couldn’t be anything other than shitty. They had a much better setup in the large conference hall with multiple cameras and such.

Sooo, that’s what you get for not being there!
30

Midnight Rambler

14 August 2011 at 6:34 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

early_cuyler, oddly enough I’m now thinking that it may have been shot on professional equipment. By fiddling with the player window until people get to be the right shape, it looks like the original aspect ratio was around 2.0-2.15:1, which is very unusual and only found on cinematic cameras. I suspect it was a high-quality video that was re-encoded at low resolution and 16:9 AR so that it looks like crap.
31

Jeanette Garcia

14 August 2011 at 6:49 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

PZ, I thoroughly enjoyed your presentation. I actually understood most of the terms you used, and learned some new things. Thanks for contributing to my life-long learning experience.
32

Nerd of Redhead

14 August 2011 at 6:51 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I suspect it was a high-quality video that was re-encoded at low resolution and 16:9 AR so that it looks like crap.

Video was rendered at <200 kbs, so that would explain the jerky quality. Why the supposedly intelligent person responsible for the camera placement couldn't have anticipated the "slides" on the screen, I can't comprehend.
33

Grrr...

14 August 2011 at 6:59 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Uploaded PZ’s talk to youtube:

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJR6UP6hJIQ
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLbw13zSvcE
Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFK3sY1T7l0
Part 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pf_8hnrE_ew
Part 5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXgKFANzmzg
34

Midnight Rambler

14 August 2011 at 7:38 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

It’s not just a low bitrate, but according to my player, it’s only 12.86 fps. Very weird.

And yeah, I don’t get why the slides weren’t on. After all, visually the speaker isn’t really that much to see, it’s about the slides.
35

Therrin

14 August 2011 at 9:13 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

But if you don’t watch the original, you might miss out on the feel-good BP cleanup ad. Oddly, I feel more dirty after watching it.
36

uncle frogy

14 August 2011 at 9:52 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I guess I am just tolerant of the “troubled video stream” I just put on pause and play solitaire and or read another tab (on Firefox)
Thanks for posting the talk now I understand what you were trying to say and I have to agree. I thought you meant what distinguished us from the other beasts what made us human instead you are talking about what one of the most important aspects about life that makes for success.
The “capturing” of bacteria by other live is very remarkable indeed.
Just wondering as I have read that the dog probably was an active participant in its domestication actually seeking the human.
could you say or think of it that the bacteria actually “infected” their “hosts” but instead of the waste product not being toxic like Botulinum toxin but some thing that was beneficial to the host

why I science is so interesting

uncle frogy
37

onefuriousllama

14 August 2011 at 10:57 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Ha, I would have sold my soul to be there! OK, fine, I would have sold my soul AND a body part! Maybe. Thanks for the video.
38

John Morales

15 August 2011 at 4:38 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Thanks, Grrr…

Good job!
39

andyo

15 August 2011 at 5:36 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

it looks like the original aspect ratio was around 2.0-2.15:1, which is very unusual and only found on cinematic cameras. I suspect it was a high-quality video that was re-encoded at low resolution and 16:9 AR so that it looks like crap.

That’s unlikely. AFAIK 2.35:1 films are shot with an anamorphic lens. And cinematic equipment for a conference? I think it’s just crappy cropping.
40

Species8472

15 August 2011 at 7:01 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Too bad Susan Sackett’s introduction is cut in half. For us sci-fi geeks the StarTrek introduction was great too. It is Gene Roddenberry she’s talking about when the video starts.
41

Therrin

16 August 2011 at 12:34 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Great, now I’ll never be able to look at barnacles without snickering.