Hyperland

 

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7190175107515525470#

 

Hyperland is a 50 minute long documentary film about hypertext and surrounding technologies written by Douglas Adams and produced by BBC Two in 1990. It stars Douglas Adams as a computer user and Tom Baker, with whom Adams already had worked on Doctor Who, as a software agent. The self proclaimed “fantasy documentary” begins with a shot of Adams asleep by the fire side with his television still on. In a dream, Adams, fed up by game shows, commercial and generally non-interactive linear content, takes his TV to a garbage dump, where he meets Tom, played by Tom Baker, a software agent that shows him the future of TV: Interactive Multimedia.

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Pandora’s Box

 

It began with a weapon created by scientists that threatened to destroy the world. But then a group of men who were convinced they control the new danger began to gain influence in America. They would manipulate terror. To do so, they would use the methods of science. Pandora’s Box was a six part 1992 BBC documentary television series written and produced by Adam Curtis, which examines the consequences of political and technocratic rationalism. Curtis’ later “The Century of the Self” had a similar theme. The title sequence made extensive use of clips from the short film Design for Dreaming, as well as other similar archive footage.

 

Part 1:  The Engineer’s Plot

The revolutionaries who toppled the Tsar in 1917 thought science held the key to their new world. In fact, it ended up creating a bewildering world for millions of Soviet people. In this light-hearted investigation, one industrial planner tells how she decided the people wanted platform shoes, only to discover that they had gone out of fashion by the time that the factory to manufacture them had been built.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8639026381197734332#

 

Part 2:  To The Brink of Eternity

Focusing on the men of the Cold War on whom Dr Strangelove was based. These were people who believed that the world could be controlled by the scientific manipulation of fear – mathematical geniuses employed by the American Rand Corporation. In the end, their visions were the stuff of science fiction fantasy.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1341195904328574735#

 

Part 3:  The League of Gentlemen

Thirty years ago, a group of economists managed to convince British politicians that they had foolproof technical means to make Britain great again. Pandora’s Box tells the saga of how their experiments have led the country deeper into economic decline, and asks – is their game finally up?

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6378502245261130859#

 

Part 4:  Goodbye Mrs Ant

A modern fable about science and society, focusing on our attitude to nature. Should we let scientists be the prime movers of social or political change when, for instance, DDT made post-war heroes of American scientists only to be put on trial by other scientists in 1968? What kind of in-fighting goes on between rival camps before one scientific truth emerges, and when it does emerge, just how true is it?

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8992996773895395024#

 

Part 5:  Black Power

A look at how former Ghanaian leader Kwame Nkrumah set Africa ablaze with his vision of a new industrial and scientific age. At the heart of his dream was to be the huge Volta dam, generating enough power to transform West Africa into an advanced utopia. But as his grand experiment took shape, it brought with it dangerous forces Nkrumah couldn’t control, and he slowly watched his metropolis of science sink into corruption and debt.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6271849785012587578#

 

Part 6:  A is For Atom

An insight into the history of nuclear power. In the 1950s scientists and politicians thought they could create a different world with a limitless source of nuclear energy. But things began to go wrong. Scientists in America and the Soviet Union were duped into building dozens of potentially dangerous plants. Then came the disasters of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl which changed views on the safety of this new technology.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6904524736774008710#

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Google: Behind the Screen

 

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=555856088590299061#

 

What if all the information in the world was categorized and easily searchable? What if all the news from around the world, all books, written texts, photos and videos that exist on a place in the world would be collected, and would be available everywhere? That is precisely the goal of Google and it will not be long for it to be realized. Through the well-known search engine, Google Earth, where all information is classified by geographical location, along with Google Books, a project where Google digitizes complete libraries.

Tegenlicht visits the head office of Google in Mountain View, California and spoke with Vint Cerf, who commissioned by the American army is the forerunner of the developed Internet. Cert now works at Google, where he helps to create and develop new possibilities for the Internet. How does he see the development of the Internet, and the role that Google plays?

Google grows like a cabbage and they continue to hire more and more smart people in order to achieve their company goal faster. But is the company itself also aware of the dangers and the consequences which it has as the organizer of of all the information in the world? Is Google like the new library of Alexandria, but far-faster and skilful information tool? The intentions of Google seem well, given the company motto ‘ Don’ t be evil’.

But in China to cooperate in censorship, Google have lost a lot of confidence. For who insures us that Google will not do this elsewhere? In addition to the millions of daily users grateful for Google’s attempts in increasing information flows in the right direction, there are more and more people who see Google as a new Big Brother, which not only determines what information is available, but also who, what, and when the information has been searched.

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Here Comes The Sun

 

 

If it were up to the sun, we would have no energy problem. Every half hour on the Earth’s surface, there is more than enough light to provide energy needs for the whole world in a year. We don’t have an energy problem, we have a conversion problem. If we are able to harvest sunlight in smart way, then we can prevent a global energy crisis.

That sounds nice but that does not mean it will succeed, at least that is what many different bodies want us to believe. It’s too expensive, takes too much space, too much material, it costs more energy than it brings, and it is still not efficient enough. While all these doubts play a role for solar energy in the distant future, it is still a marginal player in the global energy game. Back-light takes the edge off these myths and shows that a solar economy is much closer than we think. Next year, there are already rolling Giga Watts of solar cells on the conveyor belt. The industry has mastered the technology and the machines.

Radical German government measures have proved that it is possible. Villagers have completely installed solar power on empty lands. Power stations contribute to the network and where they are deserved. Many countries follow the German example: The Americans have their Grand Solar Plan and the French President Sarkozy is talking about a solar plan with the countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea. According to the Spanish electricity producers, oil companies will be left out. So what energy crisis? The sun is coming!

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Owning the Weather

 

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=9185142965253487869#

 

Nothing is more terrifying than the weather gone wild. Since the very beginning we’ve search for ways to manipulate mother nature. Now thanks to technological leaps in the last three decades, the holy grail of climate science may actually be in our reach as we strive to own the weather. Chaos theory hurricane control, advanced cloud seeding, massive ionospheric heaters, storm absorbing super gels, nano scale weather machines, some barely visible to the human eye. All of these technologies exist in some form today – many of them are being tested at this very moment. In many parts of the world, large-scale modification is already common place, and with good reason.

 

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Absolute Zero

 

 

This two-part scientific detective tale tells the story of a remarkable group of pioneers who wanted to reach the ultimate extreme: absolute zero, a place so cold that the physical world as we know it doesn’t exist, electricity flows without resistance, fluids defy gravity and the speed of light can be reduced to 38 miles per hour.

Each film features a strange cast of eccentric characters, including: Clarence Birds Eye; Frederic ‘Ice King’ Tudor, who founded an empire harvesting ice; and James Dewar, who almost drove himself crazy by trying to liquefy hydrogen.

Absolute zero became the Holy Grail of temperature physicists and is considered the gateway to many new technologies, such as nano-construction, neurological networks and quantum computing. The possibilities, it seems, are limitless.

The bizarre story of how one court magician’s use of alchemy made a King shiver. Could the future become a strange quantum world as physicists get within a few millionths of a degree of this absolute zero?

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Living Forever: The Longevity Revolution

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4336018714668472419#

 

Immortality. Life Extension. The Fountain of Youth. Real science or simply wishful thinking? Is it hope or is it hype? Scientists from around the world are racing to answer one of humanity’s chief questions: can we turn back the human clock?

Hitch a ride on this controversial roller-coaster with charismatic gerontologist Michael Rose as he leads us to where the cutting-edge science in life extension is happening: biotechnology, genetic research, therapeutic cloning and stem-cell research – fields which have moved to the outer reaches of our wildest imagination.

In Living Forever we also meet the “believers” among us: the colourful characters who refuse to succumb to the grim reaper. And let’s not forget the specialists who predict whether their clients have what it takes to live past 100.

Just to be clear, Living Forever is not a documentary about 60-year-olds who want to look like young and sexy 25-year-olds. This is a film about stopping, slowing down – even reversing – human aging. It is about the modern quest to create a longer, healthier old age, or – the Holy Grail – eliminating old age altogether.

So, what happens if humans are able to live for another 100 or 500 years? Should we create a race of immortals, just because we have the know-how? At what evolutionary cost? What about the ethical issues? Given humanity’s trajectory thus far, it’s likely that most people will say ethics be damned: let The Longevity Revolution begin.

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Total Isolation

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=536583671561908614

You are about to witness a controversial experiment, One that delves deep into the human brain.

Six ordinary people will face total sensory deprivation, all in the name of science.

We live in a dangerous era were solitary confinement and sensory deprivation are sometimes used as punishment even as political tools.

Yet scientists just beginning to investigate the impact of total isolation on the mind.

Using the latest technology and a all to real simulation, scientists hope to answer a question as old as imprisonment itself.

What happen inside your brain when you are left truly ALONE?

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Mysterious World: Search for Ancient Technology

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8310423348544378743

Born on April 14th, 1935, in Zofingen, Switzerland, Erich von Daniken was educated at the College St-Michel in Fribourg, where already as a student he occupied his time with the study of the ancient holy writings. While managing director of a Swiss 5-Star Hotel, he wrote his first book, Chariots of the Gods, which was an immediate bestseller in the United States, Germany, and later in 38 other countries.

In the United States, Erich von Daniken won instant fame as a result of the television special “In Search of Ancient Astronauts,” based upon his first book. In 1993, the German television station SAT-1 started a twenty-five part TV series with and by Erich von Daniken, entitled “Auf den Spuren der All-Machtigen” (Pathways of the Gods). In 1996, the American TV company ABC/Kane produced a one-hour special, filmed all over the world, entitled Chariots of the Gods – The Mysteries Continue.

This film was broadcast on the ABC network on September 26th 1996. In 1996/97 ABC/Kane produced another documentary with Erich von Daniken (seen on the Discovery Channel). In Germany, the biggest TV network, RTL, showed the film on November 26th, 1996. 7,7 million viewers in Germany alone watched the program

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The Human Senses

Nearly everyone has experienced a moment when a faint fragrance brings a memory of a long-lost moment in time crashing back to the forefront of their minds.Often we will have forgotten about the event completely, yet it transpires our unfathomable minds have filed it neatly in some unreachable corner of the brain, primed for instant retrieval.

Nigel Marven goes in search of the most disgusting and the most attractive smells, sets out to discover why we are excellent at seeing some things, but sometimes miss what’s right in front of our eyes, the biological reasons why humans eat such a diverse range of foods, from rotten raw ducks eggs to a sweaty blue cheese, demonstrates that when it comes to our sense of touch humans are similar to elephants, tracks down the sounds which have the most powerful emotional effects on us and joins stunt co-ordinator Marc Cass for a dramatic drive and experiences how the balance organs let us know how we’re being yanked around and even turned upside down.

Humans’ real specialty is checking each other out. We’re so good at it, we do it without even being aware of it. With the help of the latest eye-tracking technology and scientists from Sussex University, we show some unsuspecting volunteers what their eyes really get up to. We are also very skilled at gauging depth and distance. Nigel discovers how top baseball players manage to track a ball coming towards them at high speed. This skill is an extreme example of the basic hand/eye co-ordination that we all acquire as we grow up.

part 1:  Smell and Taste

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2617212976081347038

part 2:  Hearing and Balance

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=597999267854896120

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