MetaFilter posts tagged with speech

Obama's Peace Prize Lecture

Dumsnill — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 07:58:52 -0800

Obama's Nobel Peace Prize lecture

Meep!

scalefree — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:05:04 -0800

By order of the Principal, all students are forbidden to say the word "meep". That is all.

Whoops

shakespeherian — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 06:53:06 -0800

How my factual error found its way into Obama's health care speech.

Barack Obama, President of the Divided States of America

Secret Life of Gravy — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 16:18:40 -0800

Next Tuesday, Sept. 8, speaking at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Va. President Obama will address the youth of America during a live television broadcast urging them to stay in school. Some school districts, bowing to parent pressure, have decided not to show the speech during school. Governor Tim Pawlenty [...] said on WCCO radio in Minneapolis that the speech, scheduled for Tuesday, was "uninvited" and raises concerns about "the content and motive." One parent was quoted by Fox News as saying: "Children are very vulnerable and excited. I mean, this is the president. I think it's an underhanded tactic and indicative of the way things are being done." Jim Greer, chairman of the Florida Republican Party, said the speech is an effort to "spread President Obama's socialist ideology" and "justify his positions" on health care, the economy and taxes.

Rebooting the US relationship to the Muslim world.

CunningLinguist — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 08:41:21 -0800

Obama speaks in Cairo: "I have come here to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world." Text is here. He quoted the Koran and highlighted a subject he avoided during his campaign - his own family's ties to Islam, his youth in Muslim Indonesia and even Chicago's Nation of Islam. An early roundup of US right wing reaction, and US left wing reaction, and the Middle East.

the missing letters are u, c and k.

shmegegge — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 10:17:58 -0800

At GDC this year, Heather Chaplin to game developers: "You're a bunch of f***ing adolescents." Chaplin, co-author of the book Smartbomb, spoke at the Game Developers Conference during a panel called the Rant Session. The panel, a regular attraction at the conference, routinely features members of the gaming community going off on topics that they feel merit attention. This year's panel, "Burned by Friendly Fire: Game Critics Rant," gave games journalists an opportunity to let loose. Chaplin's rant has sparked some controversy thanks to her attacks on the perceived immaturity of video games, and specifically developers themselves. While many attendees of the panel (such as Gamasutra's and Sexy Video Game Land's Leigh Alexander) were partly invigorated by the points made, this feeling was often tempered by disappointment with Chaplin's insults. David Jaffe (creator of the Twisted Metal and God of War series) responded to her accusations in a recent blog post. While his initial, angrier response has been taken down, his utlimate, more tempered response remains. Overall, the vibe online at the moment seems ambivalent. Chaplin may have given voice to the frustrations many feel toward gaming's homogeneity, but few people feel comfortable with her gender and sexuality based attacks.

"Infandous street corner Cromwell"

numberstation — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 06:41:56 -0800

"Infandous street corner Cromwell" George Galloway MP banned from entering Canada. Justified on 'National Security' grounds, specifically Section 34(1) of the Immigration Act. George Galloway reacts to Canadian Immigraton Spokesman Alykhan Velshi on Channel 4. Velshi suggests this is 'not a freedom of speech issue' but in this day and age of technology is the notion of banning individuals crossing geographical borders due to opinions held absurd. It would seem the Canadian Government think not. Intellectual Protectionism rears its head and the marmite of international politics basks in the publicity. Domestic navel gazing ensues.

What language is music?

univac — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 18:52:25 -0800

Western musical intervals are derived from speech tendencies, according to Duke scientists. Specifically, "most of the 12 chromatic scale intervals correspond to peaks of relative power in the normalized spectrum of human vocalizations." A somewhat more layperson-friendly summary of the study is here. Some think that language and musicality evolved in tandem (see the singing Neanderthals), and Mendelssohn thought that the communicative ability of music is even more precise than that of language (as related by Oliver Sacks, at 9:05 - .mp3 link).

C-Span Nazis

augustweed — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 19:00:25 -0800

C-SPAN claims ownership of ALL domain names containing its service mark “C-SPAN” or any variation of it. What kind of pull does C-Span have that Walmart doesn't?

Cosmic Microwave Radiation discoverer demo-hoaxed

oonh — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 13:06:17 -0800

In 1989 Rob Pike, Penn & Teller, and Dennis Ritchie (one of the creators of UNIX), prank Arno Penzias, with a funky speech recognition demo.

Fast-talker

not_on_display — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 16:08:21 -0800

A sampling from John Moschitta Jr.'s oeuvre: Minute Rice • Northern Exposure Series Recap • The Theory of Evolution in One Minute • As "Blurr" on Transformers • As Supersonic Seymour on Garfield and Friends • On Sesame Street: 1 2 • As the Micro Machines guy: 1 2 • And the role that catapulted him to fame

What the man said.

puckish — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 11:50:47 -0800

Obama Annotated. Marc Ambinder's play-by-play of the inauguration speech, courtesy of the Atlantic.

A nation of nonbelievers

0bvious — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 11:40:35 -0800

"The government of the United States is in no sense founded on the Christian Religion." ~ George Washington / "I do not find in Christianity one redeeming feature." ~ Thomas Jefferson / "The Bible is not my book, nor Christianity my religion." ~ Abraham Lincoln / "A just government has no need for the clergy or the church." ~ James Madison / "I believe in an America where religious intolerance will someday end... where every man has the same right to attend or not attend the church of his choice." ~ John F. Kennedy / "We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers." ~ Barack Obama

Video: Krugman's Friday address to Nat'l Press Club

spock — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 18:15:14 -0800

The president of a Savings & Loan sent the following email to his family: If you have one hour of your time to invest in learning more about the current economic crisis, I highly recommend you click on one of the two below links and view [Paul Krugman's Friday address to the National Press Club]. His remarks take about 1/2 hour followed by 25 minutes of Q&As. I believe you will find watching it worth your time. P.S. If you decide to view Krugman's speech, I recommend you view it "full screen" for the best effect of viewing his body language. Link 1, Link 2 I pass it along to you with the same recommendations.

The name of this post is Talking Heads.

nebulawindphone — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 15:19:42 -0800

The Waseda Talker has been turning heads (har har) lately. It's a mechanical simulation of the human vocal tract, from the motion of its synthetic lips down to the hypnotic undulation of its rubbery vocal folds (compare the genuine article here). Think this is new? Well, these days we do most of this stuff electronically — but talking simulacra have a long and weird history, starting back when electronic synthesizers were just a pipe dream. Here's a talking pair of bellows from 1791, and a head you can play like a trumpet as recently as 1937. The granddaddy of 'em all are the Kratzenstein resonators (not Frankenstein, Kratzenstein!) from 1779. Make your own with pipe insulation and a duck call.

I have no idea what perceptual insight is, but this is pretty interesting

TheDonF — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 09:29:34 -0800

An Introduction to Sine-Wave Speech Play the first sound and you'll probably hear nothing but squeaks and bleeps. Play the second one and then go back to the first. Cool!

Pleasant Grove City v. Summum

Non Prosequitur — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 12:16:33 -0800

The previously-mentioned Summums want to place their own monument in a park which contains the Ten Commandments, making the Supreme Court's heads explode in a a hilariously weird oral argument^[pdf]: "Scalia: I don't know what that means. You keep saying it, and I don't know what it means. [...] Breyer: Suppose that there certain messages that private people had like "eat vitamins"—and then somebody comes along with a totally different content, "ride the roller coaster," and they say this part of the park is designed to get healthy children, not put children at risk." At issue: "Pulling a crystalline, cogent rule out of the murk of the court's First Amendment, public forum, and Establishment Clause doctrine is an act of creation too complicated for mere mortals."

You can't say that!

Inspector.Gadget — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 06:27:00 -0800

The U.S. Constitution protects your right to bear arms. And it supposedly protects your right to mock nearly-bare bears. Speech is definitely subject to supply and demand. So why does the FCC feel the need to regulate swearing on the airwaves? Steven Pinker complains. [via ALDaily]

OMG life is just an imitation of art amirite

goodnewsfortheinsane — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 17:53:41 -0800

xkcd had an idea to counter YouTube comment stupidity, and apparently someone at YouTube was paying attention. Not everyone is convinced however. (And there's always Comment Snob).

That's so... the children's insult of choice!

Ambrosia Voyeur — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 10:16:32 -0800

AS OF 10/08/2008, THERE WERE OVER 80,100 PAGES ONLINE WITH THE PHRASE "That's so gay."

Hillary Duff is here to elevate teen discourse! And here's a handy printout.
How 'gay' became children's insult of choice.

The Words They Used

swift — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 12:04:41 -0800

"Of great concern to me, during those same four days in Denver, they rarely mentioned the attacks of September 11, 2001."

it tore me up every time I heard her drawl

plexi — Fri, 02 May 2008 08:14:19 -0800

100% is pure Dixie. Someone has taken the Harvard Computer Society Dialect Survey to task in a vital area.

Out of the mouths of babes...

LooseFilter — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 14:51:07 -0800

New Jersey high school student Matthew LaClair has been at the center of controversy before, challenging his U.S. History teacher for proselytizing in class. He's in the news again, bringing attention to conservative bias in his American history textbook. His efforts have gained some response, highlighting a trend that has been underway for some time. As pointed out by LaClair, his textbook is written by "James Q. Wilson, a well-known conservative academic, and John J. DiIulio, a political scientist and former head of President Bush's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives." The authors' political views are apparently quite evident in the textbook. Mr. LaClair's ACLU Scholarship Essay is here, and an informal interview is here.

Out of Africa

hadjiboy — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 06:29:29 -0800

"Please don't beat me. I'm having my period." ~ Mama Wangari
"It is being both black and gay [which is problematic]." ~ Zanele Muholi (Nehanda Nyakasikana) [NSFW]
"Sisters at heart, these women are: from Kibera to Loresho." ~ WM
"My vagina wants an Uzi" ~ Larissa Klazinga (Amanda Atwood)
"You are from Kenya? So are you Kikuyu or Luo?" ~ Wangui

Blogs of women from Africa. That is all.

Robert F. Kennedy on the death of Dr. King

XQUZYPHYR — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 07:19:42 -0800

"In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it's perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in." Robert F. Kennedy on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., killed 40 years ago today.