Today is Stephen Hawking's 70th birthday. What a remarkable man. I used to have this CD- ROM that went along with The Brief History of Time. It has this little of graphic of him in his wheel chair sort of guiding you through the universe. I read that the way he communicates now is through a willful movement of his cheek to select words. Sometimes it can take several minutes to form a sentence. Amazing. Yet somehow he has found a deep sense of life in the present moment. When he could no longer move his hands to figure equations, he trained his mind to think them through.
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(from Wikipedia)
In Hawking's many media appearances, he appears to speak fluently through his synthesiser, but in reality, it is a tedious drawn-out process. Hawking's setup uses a predictive text entry system, which requires only the first few characters in order to auto-complete the word, but as he is only able to use his cheek for data entry, constructing complete sentences takes time. His speeches are prepared in advance, but having a live conversation with him provides insight as to the complexity and work involved.
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