Long Now: Conversations at The Interva‪l‬ The Long Now Foundation

A special night of short talks about the long history and scientific background behind a most persistent malady. And the drinks that can help keep it at bay. Featuring returning Interval speakers
 James Holland Jones (Stanford), James Nestor (Deep), Kara Platoni (We Have the Technology), The Interval’s Beverage Director: Jennifer Colliau, and more.

Rick Prelinger uncovers the diverse histories of
Bay Area telecommunications infrastructure: telephone, radio, television, data, image and sound. A tour of technologies, dead and flourishing, that overlay, underlay and penetrate us all.

Before us, after us, and without our realizing it: geology, ecology, and biology uniquely record human activity. Geoscientist Miles Traer, co-host of the podcast Generation Anthropocene uncovers the many “natures" of the
 San Francisco Bay Area that exist beneath our feet.

What place is there for art in the 21st century world of technology, business, and science? Everywhere. Award-winning cross-disciplinary artist and current SETI artist-in-residence Scott Kildall discusses collaborating with scientists, technologists, and others. He'll share his work and explain the vital role for Art Thinking as a tool that offers perspective
 in a dynamic, fast-moving world.

Scott Kildall is a cross-disciplinary artist whose work includes writing algorithms that transform datasets into 3D sculptures and installations. His art often invites public participation through direct interaction. He has been an artist in residence with the SETI Institute and Autodesk; and his work has been exhibited internationally at venues including the New York Hall of Science, Transmediale, the Venice Biennale and the San Jose Museum of Art. Besides many other fellowships, residencies, and honors.

Legendary science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson returns to The Interval to discuss his just released novel New York 2140. Robinson will discuss how starting from the most up to date climate science available to him, he derived a portrait of New York City as "super-Venice" and the resilient civilization that inhabits it in his novel. In 02016 Robinson spoke at The Interval about the economic ideas that inform New York 2140. He will be joined by futurist Peter Schwartz in conversation after his talk.

Kim Stanley Robinson is an American novelist, widely recognized as one of the foremost living writers of science fiction. His work has been described as "humanist science fiction" and "literary science fiction." He has published more than 20 novels including his much honored "Mars trilogy", New York 2140 (02017), and Red Moon due out in October 02018. Robinson has a B.A. in Literature from UC San Diego and an M.A. in English from Boston University. He earned a Ph.D. in literature from UCSD with a dissertation on the works of Philip K. Dick.

Science fiction does more than predict future inventions. Stories are a testbed for exploring the unexpected ways people could incorporate technology into their cultures. Science journalist and novelist Annalee Newitz will discuss how scientists, innovators, and the rest of us benefit from the crucible of imaginative fictions.
Annalee is the author of the bestselling novel Autonomous. Her nonfiction book Scatter, Adapt and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize in science. She is the founding editor of io9.com, and formerly the editor-in-chief of Gizmodo. Currently she is editor-at-large for Ars Technica. Her work has appeared in New York Times, The New Yorker, Atlantic, Wired, Washington Post, Technology Review, 2600, and many other publications. Formerly she was a policy analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation and a lecturer in American Studies at UC Berkeley. She received a Knight Science Journalism Fellowship from MIT, and has a Ph.D. in English and American Studies from UC Berkeley.