TED round 3
More interesting talks:
Neuroscience:
Kwabena Boahen on a computer that works like the brain – Detailed comparison between transistors and neural ion channels, with application to brain enhancement.
Julian Treasure: The 4 ways sound affects us – Hell yes. More awareness like this please!
Sociology:
Mike Rowe celebrates dirty jobs – Basically a rant about American laziness, but the story is interesting. There is some truth to his conclusion but I think he’s over-romanticizing.
Ian Dunbar on dog-friendly dog training – Magical truth-saying! I’m glad to see some progress in the science of dog training.
Deb Roy: The birth of a word – Some really interesting data visualizations here, and he makes me envy (somewhat) kids growing up today in the world of ubiquitous digital photography. While it means having evidence to suppress, it also means having great memory aids.
Christopher “moot” Poole: The case for anonymity online – I don’t think he really makes much of a case for anything – indeed he talks about some things that could be called invasion of privacy. But it is interesting to hear the back-story of a little-understood web phenomenon.
Malcolm McLaren: Authentic creativity vs. karaoke culture – Long but good. At first it’s not clear where he’s going, but it comes together when he gets to his art school story. He’s on about one of the things that really bothers me about western pop culture.
Amber Case: We are all cyborgs now – I love her visualization of the mass of the data we carry around with us.
Environmentalism:
James Balog: Time-lapse proof of extreme ice loss – Standard-issue environmental message aside, the time-lapse movies of glaciers moving are worth watching.
Michael Pollan gives a plant’s-eye view – A nice counterpoint to the typical view of man exploiting nature.
Technology:
David Pogue on cool phone tricks – Grab bag of useful clues about cell phone services.
Physics:
Aaron O’Connell: Making sense of a visible quantum object – Science!
Nanotechnology:
Angela Belcher: Using nature to grow batteries – Progress!
Law:
Philip K. Howard: Four ways to fix a broken legal system – “You can’t run a society by the lowest common denominator.” HELL YEAH!
Larry Lessig on laws that choke creativity – Basically about remix culture versus IP law.
Barry Schwartz on our loss of wisdom – A great rant about how mindless rule-following and poorly constructed incentives have led to some of the social and legal insanity we suffer today.
Miscellaneous:
Benjamin Wallace on the price of happiness – Gets to my problem with a lot of “gourmet” culture, namely mistaking attributes like rare, special and expensive for the attribute “good”.
TED addiction sets in
I’m really starting to like TED talks. They’re short, often you can just listen to them without the visuals, the presenters are usually skilled and entertaining, and there are lots of interesting topics. Here are a few favorites out of what I’ve watched so far. More to come!
Neuroscience:
VS Ramachandran on your mind – He talks about an assortment of neurological disorders and treatments, none of which is new to me, but at the end he talks about synesthesia and draws some very interesting speculation about creativity as a function of brain structure.
Christopher deCharms looks inside the brain – Using real-time FMRI to begin mapping between thought and reality in both directions.
Henry Markram builds a brain in a supercomputer – Computer models of how brains work, specifically the beginnings of simulating human brains in digital computers. This is something I’m interested in getting into, and I’m glad someone is finally heading in this direction.
VS Ramachandran: The neurons that shaped civilization – On the importance of mirror neurons.
Mathematics:
Ron Eglash on African fractals – Wow, I had no idea.
Biology:
Janine Benyus: Biomimicry in action and Janine Benyus shares nature’s designs – Taking nanomaterial designs from nature. I heartily approve.
Dean Ornish says your genes are not your fate – Very short, but a good exhortation to improve your health.
Dan Buettner: How to live to be 100+ – Lifestyle lessons from the regions that produce the most centenarians.
Global Threats:
Peter Ward on Earth’s mass extinctions – Interesting theory I hadn’t heard before, that many of the Earth’s mass extinctions were caused by hydrogen sulfide emissions from the oceans, triggered by rising temperatures.
Philosophy:
Sam Harris: Science can answer moral questions – Oh, hell yes! He says what we’re all thinking!
Richard Dawkins on militant atheism – First time I’ve seen him speak. Totally agree.
Randy Pausch: Really achieving your childhood dreams – Its long, but totally worth listening to. He totally deserves the standing ovation he gets at the end.
Transhumanism:
Gregory Stock: To upgrade is human – Echoes a lot of my own sentiments.
Juan Enriquez shares mindboggling science – Starts talking about the US economic problems, but then gets into convergence of biological and robotic technology, mentioning a few things I hadn’t heard of, leading into discussion of upcoming evolution of our species.
Aubrey de Grey says we can avoid aging – This is the first de Grey output I’ve consumed, and I’m quite impressed. Especially with how he characterizes the crazy attitudes of death advocates.
Arts:
Theo Jansen creates new creatures – The sculptor explains how his wonderful “animals” work. He sounds almost like a proper crackpot inventor too – he wouldn’t be out of place in Gizmo.
Space:
George Dyson on Project Orion – I’ve been a fan of Project Orion for a long time, but this talk adds some personal detail about the people involved that I hadn’t heard before.
George Smoot on the design of the universe – He has some 3D animations of that long-range galaxy survey.
General:
Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks – First time I’ve seen Assange speak.
James Nachtwey’s searing photos of war – Powerful photographs.
Bill Strickland makes change with a slide show – Heartening. I had no idea this sort of thing was going on.
Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity and Sir Ken Robinson: Bring on the learning revolution! – this guy is an excellent speaker, and I really like what he has to say about education.
Clifford Stoll on … everything – Holy cow, I love this guy!
Film News From Another Universe
Going through old magazines, I found these tidbits in a 1993 issue of Video Games mag:
Commands, in order:
- Wow, the rumor of a Pong movie has been around for a long time. I still want to see the Joust movie though. Take your place among the flying elite!
- I cannot imagine anyone other than Hugh Jackman playing Wolverine. Especially not this guy.
- Sadly that FF movie actually did get made. Sadly, so did the 2005 one.
- I didn’t like the Lost in Space movie all that much, but I’m so glad this isn’t what got made.
- Sadly, the Guyver movie also got made. Poor Luke Skywalker.
Also, this:
Evidently I need to see City Hunter. Parody aside, why is it that film and cartoon adaptations of Street Fighter are so universally bad? Oh, wait, I remember why now – it’s because the game back-story LICKS DONKEY! Great game, lousy storyline.
Some amusing ads
Spotted these in an oldish magazine (1986).
Check the price:
And this – while perhaps unremarkable, it makes me wonder what crimes perpetrated against us today resulted from the placement of this job ad:
