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Whos your hero?
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| pyro264jb |
For me it’s Stephen Hawkings. The man developed motor neuron disease at the age of 21. Several years later he contracted pneumonia and had to have a tracheotomy, which took away his ability to speak. Most people would curl up in a ball and just hide themselves from society, but Hawking never let his disability take over his life.
This is inspiring stuff....
| quote: | The Man On Stage
Just saw Stephen Hawking over at Berkeley. It was one of the most amazing talks I’ve ever seen — for reasons that had nothing to do with the talk itself.
I mean, it was good stuff: “The Origin of the Universe.” But my mind has been blown that way a few times already and Hawking didn’t say anything I hadn’t already heard.
But it wasn’t what he said. It was the scene.
Imagine the stage: huge, wide, dark — Zellerbach Hall at Berkeley. There’s Hawking in the middle: a crumple of brown suit in his wheelchair, in a pool of light. There’s a humongous projection screen behind him and a microphone stand set up in front of him.
In the beginning there’s a long pause. Really long. The applause dies down (as an aside, I’ve never seen an audience as warm towards somebody as this one was towards him) and then… crickets. For thirty seconds… a minute… two minutes.
Then suddenly, Hawking’s synthesized voice:
“Can you hear me?”
The climactic scenes of blockbuster movies are not as thrilling. There is a gasp, and laughs, and claps, and murmurs “yes.”
His voice still sounds pretty much like that original Macintosh synthesizer — you’d recognize it as, like, “generic computer voice” — except here in Zellerbach it’s loud, amplified, everywhere at once.
He barrels into his talk, accompanied by a line of white text along the bottom of the projection screen and a set of awesomely dorky slides. Yes: To describe the very shape and duration of the universe, Stephen Hawking uses PowerPoint clip art.
But of course the entire time, he’s motionless. For all we know Hawking could be a dummy, a cunningly detailed prop. The text has all been composed ahead of time, obviously. The screen is the only thing on stage that moves.
Well, almost. Hawking controls his world via a sensor that watches his eye — I think he blinks, or at least flexes the blink-muscle, to trigger it. And when it triggers, it makes a whispery beep. So throughout his talk, you can hear a background rhythm of these beeps: faint, just on the edge of perception even with the microphone so close, but distinctly there. Like a pulse.
I wish I could really capture how his synthesized voice felt. Booming out in that hall, in odd computery cadences, the tonal modulations almost musical sometimes, and a crisp digital sibilance… the guy I went with said “it sounded kinda like the voice of god” and he was totally right
http://snarkmarket.com/blog/snarkiv...e_man_on_stage/
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I have had motor neurone disease for practically all my adult life. Yet it has not prevented me from having a very attractive family, and being successful in my work. This is thanks to the help I have received from Jane, my children, and a large number of other people and organisations. I have been lucky, that my condition has progressed more slowly than is often the case. But it shows that one need not lose hope. Stephen Hawking |
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| euphoria |
| He is a very intelligent person indeed. I've never really thought about who I would consider my hero. |
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| AY STAR |
rodney dangerfield
hes like me we get no respect :( |
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| trancEyes22 |
| my parents :) |
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| Konijn |
hawking is a brilliant academic but an of monumental proportions in his personal life; his disgusting behavior toward colleagues and underlings is legend, a fact to which his first two wives -- who nursed him for years while he cheated on them -- would surely attest.
my hero is the most decent person i know: my mom. |
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| AY STAR |
| quote: | Originally posted by Konijn
hawking is a brilliant academic but an of monumental proportions in his personal life; his disgusting behavior toward colleagues and underlings is legend, a fact to which his first two wives -- who nursed him for years while he cheated on them -- would surely attest.
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yea family guy abuses the out of him
i also heard he was a sick to deal with |
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| kaykay |
Kelly aka YankeeBaby
ref: my sig |
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| southbound24 |
| my dog - he gets to stay home all day, eat, sleep,have cute girls pet him, and go out at leats 3 times a day, while i clean up after him |
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| steven-neil |
| Buddy Rich......Mike if you read this please post the vid of Buddy Rich and Animal and you'll all see why.... |
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| Greggy4202k |
| Peter Patrelli....he's the man |
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| ReenTeenTeen |
| never had a hiro (i dont look up or down to people) |
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| priscilla |
| my momma and my grandpa....two people I try my best to be like!! :D |
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