Sydney in the 1960s wasn't the exuberant multicultural metropolis it is today. Out in the city's western reaches days passed in a sun-struck stupor. In the evenings families gathered on their verandas waiting for the 'southerly buster' - the thunderstorm that would break the heat and leave the air cool enough to allow sleep.

I represent the kids who come from nothing but who understand it all and love it all. That's what I represent - those are the cool kids you know the kids of tomorrow because who would've known that I'd be who I am today? We are the kids of tomorrow.

Maybe I am a little bit guilty of trying to convince myself that I am cool to this point - even today. But I am so much more healthy than I used to be in my twenties because I was not accepted at all.

Today computers help us making the music. It's really a tool.

That's the new way - with computers computers computers. That's the way we can have the cell survive and get some new information in high resolution. We started about five years ago and today I think we have reached the target.

Kids today are smarter than we ever were. And they've got computers too which is awesome. They're scary to me.

Today computers are almost second nature to most of us.

Every piece of software written today is likely going to infringe on someone else's patent.

Nanotechnology will let us build computers that are incredibly powerful. We'll have more power in the volume of a sugar cube than exists in the entire world today.

Today comics is one of the very few forms of mass communication in which individual voices still have a chance to be heard.

Unlike then the mail stream of today has diminished by such things as e-mails and faxes and cell phones and text messages largely electronic means of communication that replace mail.

Today most young women are exposed to technology at a very young age with mobile phones tablets the Web or social media. They are much more proficient with technology than prior generations since they use it for all their school work communication and entertainment.

Power in America today is control of the means of communication.

No one who set out to design a form of communication would ever end up with anything like English Mandarin or any of the more than six thousand languages spoken today.

As a whole the managers today are different in temperament. Most have very good communication skills and are more understanding of the umpire's job. That doesn't mean they are better managers. It just means that I perceive today's managers a bit differently.

But I'm acutely aware that the possibility of fraud is even more prevalent in today's world because of the Internet and cell phones and the opportunity for instant communication with strangers.

Some argue that now isn't the time to push the green agenda - that all efforts should be on preventing a serious recession. That is a false choice. It fails to recognise that climate change and our carbon reliance is part of problem - high fuel prices and food shortages due to poor crop yields compound today's financial difficulties.

I get heartfelt thanks from all kinds of people. Today I heard from a waitress in Georgia who has lost her job and is trying to figure out how her local bank can change the terms on her credit card and I heard from a physicist at a major research university who wants to explain a better theory of financial stress tests.

We have to face the reality of climate change. It is arguably the biggest threat we are facing today.

I can't just say one time of the year I'm going to do something different. I have to commit to a lifestyle behavioral change and just try to be a little bit better today than I was yesterday.

Today in America we are trying to prepare students for a high tech world of constant change but we are doing so by putting them through a school system designed in the early 20th Century that has not seen substantial change in 30 years.

I don't think people change. I think they definitely mature. But I think the essence of what I am today is the same as when I was five years old. It's just maturity. I've become a healthier fuller expression of that essence.

We teach people that they upset themselves. We can't change the past so we change how people are thinking feeling and behaving today.

It is change continuing change inevitable change that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is but the world as it will be.