HatTip to Alexa. For you parents out there...
JellyTelly Labs is a new media startup founded by VeggieTales creator, Phil Vischer. Targeting 5 to 10 year olds, their mission is to help the "next generation build a faith-based, value-rich foundation for life" while working on various new Christian family media projects.
Their video technology partner is Ooyala, which was co-founded by three former Google employees. Ooyala's technology allowed JellyTelly to create their own "mini-network" and provided an integrated solution for the delivery and management of their videos.
Anyway, you can check out some sample videos here.
Showing posts with label entertainment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label entertainment. Show all posts
Friday, December 26, 2008
Friday, July 4, 2008
Food & Entertainment Sites... FoodDigger, Gobbl, Flavorpill, ZonkIt
Some lesser known online sites to check out...
FoodDigger, a recently launched restaurant recommendation site based in LA.
Gobbl, a food blogger and recommendation site based in NYC.
Flavorpill, an events, entertainment, and culture news site. They cover New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Miami, and London.
ZonkIt, a new (still in beta) online event site focused on the LA nightlife scene.
FoodDigger, a recently launched restaurant recommendation site based in LA.
Gobbl, a food blogger and recommendation site based in NYC.
Flavorpill, an events, entertainment, and culture news site. They cover New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Miami, and London.
ZonkIt, a new (still in beta) online event site focused on the LA nightlife scene.
Monday, March 3, 2008
TED... Notes from Day Four
So Christine and I got back Saturday evening from TED@Aspen. I still need a few days to sort through my thoughts about TED since I'm in the thick of a few other projects.
The last day's sessions were "How Dare We Be Optimistic?" and "And The Point?"
"How Dare We Be Optimistic?" was with Paul Collier, economist and author of The Bottom Billion, and Al Gore.
Paul Collier asked when was the last time the wealthy of the world got serious about developing another region of the world? He said the last time was during World War II when the U.S. helped Europe. There were four primary areas:
- Foreign Aid. Money. Thanks, he said.
- Trade Policy. Opened up its market. General Agreement on Trade & Tariffs created.
- Security. Isolationism to troops in Europe for over 40 years. I believe he said 100,000 troops currently in Europe.
- Governance. UN created
What about the new "bottom billion." How U.S. can help again?
Money isn't the issue here. The critical issue is the level of governance in these various resource pools. Sometimes democracies makes more of a mess. What countries of the bottom billion need are more checks & balances.
How can we improve government and implement more checks & balances? International standards. What are these standards? Resource extraction standards. What? Verified auctions.
Why are these standards and rules not there yet? Because we don't have a critical mass of informed citizens in our societies, and politicians will get away with gestures. We need to work on this.
Al Gore comes on the stage. Cool. Yeah! Yawn :)
"AND THE POINT?"
John Francis, "Planetwalker," was silent for 17 years. He also walked. A lot. Walked 500 miles to Ashland, Oregon to obtain his college degree. Then walked to Montana to obtain his MA, and taught a class in silence. How effective was this class? Would it have been better taught if he spoke?
He was writing on oil spills when Exxon Valdez happened. He was the only one in the U.S. at the time, so he was thrusted into the limelight.
How much more effective is he speaking now versus before?
He spoke on Earth Day for the first time in 17 years.
Why he starting talking again? He was studying environment and found there was an informal level. Changed from being about just trees and about how we treat each other.
He was afraid of change, but he needed to to tell his message.
(Ok, so my notes here were really scattered. Sorry!)
OTHER SUMMARIES...
"TED2008: How dare we be optimistic?" TEDBlog
"TED2008: And The Point?" TEDBlog
"TED2008: Innovation in the morning" Ethan Zuckerman's blog
"TED2008: Paul Collier - Compassion and enlightened self-interest" Ethan Zuckerman's blog
"TED2008: Al Gore with solutions" Ethan Zuckerman's blog
"TED2008: John Francis walks the walk" Ethan Zuckerman's blog
"TED2008: Liberals, conservatives and moral humility" Ethan Zuckerman's blog
"TED2008: Geldolf asks for help" Ethan Zuckerman's blog
"TED 2008 Day 4 Highlights" Cerdafied blog
"Day 4 at TED@ASPEN 2008" Howard Wright's blog
"TED Highlights Day Four" Microclesia blog
The last day's sessions were "How Dare We Be Optimistic?" and "And The Point?"
"How Dare We Be Optimistic?" was with Paul Collier, economist and author of The Bottom Billion, and Al Gore.
Paul Collier asked when was the last time the wealthy of the world got serious about developing another region of the world? He said the last time was during World War II when the U.S. helped Europe. There were four primary areas:
- Foreign Aid. Money. Thanks, he said.
- Trade Policy. Opened up its market. General Agreement on Trade & Tariffs created.
- Security. Isolationism to troops in Europe for over 40 years. I believe he said 100,000 troops currently in Europe.
- Governance. UN created
What about the new "bottom billion." How U.S. can help again?
Money isn't the issue here. The critical issue is the level of governance in these various resource pools. Sometimes democracies makes more of a mess. What countries of the bottom billion need are more checks & balances.
How can we improve government and implement more checks & balances? International standards. What are these standards? Resource extraction standards. What? Verified auctions.
Why are these standards and rules not there yet? Because we don't have a critical mass of informed citizens in our societies, and politicians will get away with gestures. We need to work on this.
Al Gore comes on the stage. Cool. Yeah! Yawn :)
"AND THE POINT?"
John Francis, "Planetwalker," was silent for 17 years. He also walked. A lot. Walked 500 miles to Ashland, Oregon to obtain his college degree. Then walked to Montana to obtain his MA, and taught a class in silence. How effective was this class? Would it have been better taught if he spoke?
He was writing on oil spills when Exxon Valdez happened. He was the only one in the U.S. at the time, so he was thrusted into the limelight.
How much more effective is he speaking now versus before?
He spoke on Earth Day for the first time in 17 years.
Why he starting talking again? He was studying environment and found there was an informal level. Changed from being about just trees and about how we treat each other.
He was afraid of change, but he needed to to tell his message.
(Ok, so my notes here were really scattered. Sorry!)
OTHER SUMMARIES...
"TED2008: How dare we be optimistic?" TEDBlog
"TED2008: And The Point?" TEDBlog
"TED2008: Innovation in the morning" Ethan Zuckerman's blog
"TED2008: Paul Collier - Compassion and enlightened self-interest" Ethan Zuckerman's blog
"TED2008: Al Gore with solutions" Ethan Zuckerman's blog
"TED2008: John Francis walks the walk" Ethan Zuckerman's blog
"TED2008: Liberals, conservatives and moral humility" Ethan Zuckerman's blog
"TED2008: Geldolf asks for help" Ethan Zuckerman's blog
"TED 2008 Day 4 Highlights" Cerdafied blog
"Day 4 at TED@ASPEN 2008" Howard Wright's blog
"TED Highlights Day Four" Microclesia blog
Saturday, March 1, 2008
TED... Day Three Wrap Up
Yeah, I'm getting lazy about yesterday and need to focus on the last day, so here are summaries from other blogs :)
"TED2008: What will tomorrow bring?" TEDBlog
"TED2008: What Stirs Us?" TEDBlog
"Day 3 at TED@ASPEN 2008" Howard Wright's blog
"TED 2008 Day 3" Cerdafied blog
"TED2008: Bringing the forces together" Ethan Zuckerman's blog
(Ethan just kicks ass at live blogging)
"TED2008: Robert Ballard wants you to look down" Ethan Zuckerman's blog
"TED2008: Paul Stamets: If all you have is a mushroom everything looks like a mycelium" Ethan Zuckerman's blog
"TED2008: Very smart crows." Ethan Zuckerman's blog
"TED2008: Richard Preston - Go Climb a Tree" Ethan Zuckerman's blog
"TED2008: Peter Schwartz - Everything’s gonna be alright" Ethan Zuckerman's blog
"TED2008: Sue Goldie and the cost of health" Ethan Zuckerman's blog
"TED2008: Narratives and questions" Ethan Zuckerman's blog
"TED2008: Helen Fisher and the origins of love" Ethan Zuckerman's blog
"TED2008: The flashbulb moment" Ethan Zuckerman's blog
"TED2008: Ben Zander and one buttock playing" Ethan Zuckerman's blog
"TED2008: Chris Abani - Forgetting their names" Ethan Zuckerman's blog
"TED2008: What will tomorrow bring?" TEDBlog
"TED2008: What Stirs Us?" TEDBlog
"Day 3 at TED@ASPEN 2008" Howard Wright's blog
"TED 2008 Day 3" Cerdafied blog
"TED2008: Bringing the forces together" Ethan Zuckerman's blog
(Ethan just kicks ass at live blogging)
"TED2008: Robert Ballard wants you to look down" Ethan Zuckerman's blog
"TED2008: Paul Stamets: If all you have is a mushroom everything looks like a mycelium" Ethan Zuckerman's blog
"TED2008: Very smart crows." Ethan Zuckerman's blog
"TED2008: Richard Preston - Go Climb a Tree" Ethan Zuckerman's blog
"TED2008: Peter Schwartz - Everything’s gonna be alright" Ethan Zuckerman's blog
"TED2008: Sue Goldie and the cost of health" Ethan Zuckerman's blog
"TED2008: Narratives and questions" Ethan Zuckerman's blog
"TED2008: Helen Fisher and the origins of love" Ethan Zuckerman's blog
"TED2008: The flashbulb moment" Ethan Zuckerman's blog
"TED2008: Ben Zander and one buttock playing" Ethan Zuckerman's blog
"TED2008: Chris Abani - Forgetting their names" Ethan Zuckerman's blog
TED... "What's Out There?"
Ok. The rest of DAY THREE I just wanted to listen and take notes, so these are just my brief thoughts on what happened yesterday during the "What's Out There?" session.
The most interesting presentations for me were Paul Stamets, a mycologist, and Joshua Klein, a biological and computer hacker.
Paul Stamets work with mushrooms was fascinating. The mycelium in mushrooms contained various solutions for pest control, health issues and our environment. Paul showed an experiment where mushrooms cleaned up a petroleum pool in soil. He explained how he created a new pesticide for termites and ants using mushrooms. Many pesticides ants and termites learn to avoid, but a mycelium-based pesticide he create actually attracted ants where they took it back to their nest. Then it killed the queen and the whole colony. He patented this and I believe licensed it to some pesticide companies. Very cool.
Joshua Klein's work was creepy and interesting. Creepy for me because I have witnessed the intelligence of crows first-hand while growing up (attacked and chased), and having watched Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds too many times:)
He explained how crow are found everywhere on the planet except for the Poles and deserts. Joshua explained how crows' brains are proportional in the same way that chimpanzee's brains are, and how intelligent they are. He showed a video of a young crow trying to get a piece of meat out of a tube. His beak isn't long enough, so the crow takes a metal wire and bends it into a hook. Yes, a hook. Then the crow proceeds to hook the meat and pull it up out of the tube. Joshua emphasized that this crow didn't learn this behavior from another crow. It simply figured out this out. Scary smart for a bird.
The second video showed crows in Japan discovering how to crack nuts. They drop the nuts on not just the road but a crosswalk area, waited until a car drives over it, and then waited until the light is red for it to walk along the crosswalk to get the nuts. Scary smart. What is more interesting is that they started to teach each other this behavior, so it spread it other part of this Japanese city.
Based on all of this, Joshua built a machine that trained crows how to pick up change and deposit it in return for peanuts. This was driven by his desire to find a good use for these intelligent birds instead of looking to exterminate them.
OTHER SUMMARIES...
"TED2008: What's Out There?" TEDBlog
The most interesting presentations for me were Paul Stamets, a mycologist, and Joshua Klein, a biological and computer hacker.
Paul Stamets work with mushrooms was fascinating. The mycelium in mushrooms contained various solutions for pest control, health issues and our environment. Paul showed an experiment where mushrooms cleaned up a petroleum pool in soil. He explained how he created a new pesticide for termites and ants using mushrooms. Many pesticides ants and termites learn to avoid, but a mycelium-based pesticide he create actually attracted ants where they took it back to their nest. Then it killed the queen and the whole colony. He patented this and I believe licensed it to some pesticide companies. Very cool.
Joshua Klein's work was creepy and interesting. Creepy for me because I have witnessed the intelligence of crows first-hand while growing up (attacked and chased), and having watched Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds too many times:)
He explained how crow are found everywhere on the planet except for the Poles and deserts. Joshua explained how crows' brains are proportional in the same way that chimpanzee's brains are, and how intelligent they are. He showed a video of a young crow trying to get a piece of meat out of a tube. His beak isn't long enough, so the crow takes a metal wire and bends it into a hook. Yes, a hook. Then the crow proceeds to hook the meat and pull it up out of the tube. Joshua emphasized that this crow didn't learn this behavior from another crow. It simply figured out this out. Scary smart for a bird.
The second video showed crows in Japan discovering how to crack nuts. They drop the nuts on not just the road but a crosswalk area, waited until a car drives over it, and then waited until the light is red for it to walk along the crosswalk to get the nuts. Scary smart. What is more interesting is that they started to teach each other this behavior, so it spread it other part of this Japanese city.
Based on all of this, Joshua built a machine that trained crows how to pick up change and deposit it in return for peanuts. This was driven by his desire to find a good use for these intelligent birds instead of looking to exterminate them.
OTHER SUMMARIES...
"TED2008: What's Out There?" TEDBlog
Friday, February 29, 2008
TED... Day Two Wrap Up
Here are the various blogs covering yesterday, Day Two at TED...
"Highlights from TED@ASPEN 2008 Day 2" Howard Wright's blog
"TED Briefly" by eman's view
"TED Highlights Day Two" Microclesia
"Highlights from TED@ASPEN 2008 Day 2" Howard Wright's blog
"TED Briefly" by eman's view
"TED Highlights Day Two" Microclesia
TED... "How do We Create?"
DAY THREE starts out with June Cohen moderating the first session. Robert Lang is up. He's an origami expert.
Ok. I'm pretty amazed that the origami pieces he's showing are all one sheet of paper. He uses mathematics to create complex origami art. Here are some samples:
He's explaining how all this is done by following simple laws. He says, "The secret is let dead people do the work for you by using their solutions"
The science of this origami has some pretty cool applications in other fields. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency use it to create a solar sail that would be stored in the smallest space possible, a heart stent using origami was created to enter the body effectively and keep blood vessels open, and other example was to store airbags efficiently.
Amy Tan, author of The Joy Luck Club and other books, is coming up on stage. She is explaining the background of her creativity. Her childhood and how she grew up. Her father was a baptist minister who passed away early along with her brother from cancer. Her mother didn't believe in randomness, so she set out to explain these deaths. Must have been something she did or something they did? Amy Tan accepts randomness.
So her big questions are: Why do things happen? How do things happen? How do I make things happen?
She describes her trip to a village in China where she learns about the people and absorb their culture and beliefs. Ideas for her book might come from such a visit, but won't turn into anything creative until years from now.
As she continues through this presentation, I have to acknowledge her intelligence and the thought that must go into her books. I think I have to got back and reread some of her works and others that I never read.
OTHER SUMMARIES...
"TED2008: How do we create?" TEDBlog
Ok. I'm pretty amazed that the origami pieces he's showing are all one sheet of paper. He uses mathematics to create complex origami art. Here are some samples:
He's explaining how all this is done by following simple laws. He says, "The secret is let dead people do the work for you by using their solutions"
The science of this origami has some pretty cool applications in other fields. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency use it to create a solar sail that would be stored in the smallest space possible, a heart stent using origami was created to enter the body effectively and keep blood vessels open, and other example was to store airbags efficiently.
Amy Tan, author of The Joy Luck Club and other books, is coming up on stage. She is explaining the background of her creativity. Her childhood and how she grew up. Her father was a baptist minister who passed away early along with her brother from cancer. Her mother didn't believe in randomness, so she set out to explain these deaths. Must have been something she did or something they did? Amy Tan accepts randomness.
So her big questions are: Why do things happen? How do things happen? How do I make things happen?
She describes her trip to a village in China where she learns about the people and absorb their culture and beliefs. Ideas for her book might come from such a visit, but won't turn into anything creative until years from now.
As she continues through this presentation, I have to acknowledge her intelligence and the thought that must go into her books. I think I have to got back and reread some of her works and others that I never read.
OTHER SUMMARIES...
"TED2008: How do we create?" TEDBlog
Thursday, February 28, 2008
TED... "Will Evil Prevail?"
Professor Phillip Zimbardo comes up to the stage. He's a social psychologist from Stanford and wrote the book, The Lucifer Effect.
He's best known for conducting the Stanford prison experiment in 1971 where a mock prison experiment went astray. The student participants played the roles of guards and prisoners. The guards rapidly succumbed to their power and abused the prisoners.
Zimbardo asks, "What makes people go wrong?"
Evil is the "exercise of power to intentionally harm people psychologically, destroy them physically and commit crimes against humanity." I'm wondering if this is all that evil is?
He continues on to discuss the abuses at Abu Ghraib abuses. Zimbardo's hypothesis is that the soldiers were good but the barrel was bad. He says not who but what is responsible for these horrific prison abuses.
How do psychologists understand such transformations of Human character?
Dispositional: inside of individuals: The Bad Apples
Situational: External: The Bad Barrel
Systemic: Bad System
Zimbardo is now discussing Stanley Milgram's famous experiment at Yale. He explored these questions and others:
Could the holocaust occur again in America?
Would you electrocute a stranger if Hitler asked you to?
Milgram asked a group of 40 psychologists what percentage of these people would go to the end of the power dial where they would knowingly kill someone? 1% said most of the 40 psychologists.
What actually happened was that 2/3 of the people went all the way to 450 volts. He continued this experiment and the percentages increased. He had the fake people rebel and 90% went all the way.
Jim Jones is a modern "Lucifer Effect"... "Understanding is not excusing"
His positive takeaways... Heroism is the Antidote to Evil. Promote heroic stories and role models.
Great session.
AFTERTHOUGHTS...
I probably have differences with Professor Zimbardo, especially on the definition of evil. Evil is not the just extreme actions and horrific crimes against humanity. Evil can be the subtle actions between people. Is lying to your mother evil? Is cheating on an exam evil? Is greed or obsession with money evil? When a person fully capable of taking care of their sick, faultless father and ignores his suffering is it evil? If a person sleeps with his brother's wife, is this evil? I would say "yes" to all of these, but I don't believe this falls into Zimbardo's definition of evil.
I like the dictionary definition better:
a: morally reprehensible : sinful, wicked b: arising from actual or imputed bad character or conduct
Professor Zimbardo referred to Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. There is a great scene in the book where Dr. Jekyll is sitting on a park bench without the potion and he begins to look down upon others who where doing charity work like him but he questions their character and intent. Through his vanity and judgmental heart he transforms into Mr. Hyde for the first time without the potion. So it's not only the murders and rapes that define evil, but the subtle actions of the heart and mind. Especially since these lead to the greater evils of humanity that were the primary focus in Zimbardo's presentation.
In a similar story in the Bible, "The Rich and Lazarus" (Luke 16:19-31), the rich man didn't get into heaven not because he was rich, but because it consumed him. It was his motivation for being and source of his pride to the point that he despised those without wealth. He despised and looked down upon the poor.
UPDATE
Other summaries...
"TED2008: Lucifer or hero?" Ethan Zuckerman's blog
"TED2008: Will Evil Prevail?" TEDBlog
ted2008, ted
He's best known for conducting the Stanford prison experiment in 1971 where a mock prison experiment went astray. The student participants played the roles of guards and prisoners. The guards rapidly succumbed to their power and abused the prisoners.
Zimbardo asks, "What makes people go wrong?"
Evil is the "exercise of power to intentionally harm people psychologically, destroy them physically and commit crimes against humanity." I'm wondering if this is all that evil is?
He continues on to discuss the abuses at Abu Ghraib abuses. Zimbardo's hypothesis is that the soldiers were good but the barrel was bad. He says not who but what is responsible for these horrific prison abuses.
How do psychologists understand such transformations of Human character?
Dispositional: inside of individuals: The Bad Apples
Situational: External: The Bad Barrel
Systemic: Bad System
Zimbardo is now discussing Stanley Milgram's famous experiment at Yale. He explored these questions and others:
Could the holocaust occur again in America?
Would you electrocute a stranger if Hitler asked you to?
Milgram asked a group of 40 psychologists what percentage of these people would go to the end of the power dial where they would knowingly kill someone? 1% said most of the 40 psychologists.
What actually happened was that 2/3 of the people went all the way to 450 volts. He continued this experiment and the percentages increased. He had the fake people rebel and 90% went all the way.
Jim Jones is a modern "Lucifer Effect"... "Understanding is not excusing"
His positive takeaways... Heroism is the Antidote to Evil. Promote heroic stories and role models.
Great session.
AFTERTHOUGHTS...
I probably have differences with Professor Zimbardo, especially on the definition of evil. Evil is not the just extreme actions and horrific crimes against humanity. Evil can be the subtle actions between people. Is lying to your mother evil? Is cheating on an exam evil? Is greed or obsession with money evil? When a person fully capable of taking care of their sick, faultless father and ignores his suffering is it evil? If a person sleeps with his brother's wife, is this evil? I would say "yes" to all of these, but I don't believe this falls into Zimbardo's definition of evil.
I like the dictionary definition better:
a: morally reprehensible : sinful, wicked
Professor Zimbardo referred to Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. There is a great scene in the book where Dr. Jekyll is sitting on a park bench without the potion and he begins to look down upon others who where doing charity work like him but he questions their character and intent. Through his vanity and judgmental heart he transforms into Mr. Hyde for the first time without the potion. So it's not only the murders and rapes that define evil, but the subtle actions of the heart and mind. Especially since these lead to the greater evils of humanity that were the primary focus in Zimbardo's presentation.
In a similar story in the Bible, "The Rich and Lazarus" (Luke 16:19-31), the rich man didn't get into heaven not because he was rich, but because it consumed him. It was his motivation for being and source of his pride to the point that he despised those without wealth. He despised and looked down upon the poor.
UPDATE
Other summaries...
"TED2008: Lucifer or hero?" Ethan Zuckerman's blog
"TED2008: Will Evil Prevail?" TEDBlog
ted2008, ted
TED... "Is Beauty Truth?"
The second session of Day Two is "Is Beauty Truth?"
This session is hosted by June Cohen, TED's Media Director.
She explains that Nancy Etcoff is sick, so was unable to attend and speak.
June poses some central questions...
What do we find beautiful and why?
Use to be assumed that beauty was from cultural learning, but today we find there is some science behind it. I assume this is referring to studies on symmetry and how this crossing cultures.
(commercial break)
Issac Mizrahi is up first. First designer ever invited to speak at TED.
Lot of his design ideas come from mistakes and tricks of the eye. He says interesting ones look like mistakes. He doesn't get inspired by research. He states that he's very lazy about research. He believes creativity should be like a bodily function.
Issac is very inspired by movies, especially the colors in them.
(video plays clips of women from old movies)
Color motivates him a lot. Rarely colors in nature though. Loves tarot card readings. Amusing.
He believes being slightly bored with everything is important for being a fashion designer... or you have to pretend to be slightly bored with everything. (lol)
Not sure if this session really explored the question or even a definition of beauty. It was more of an exploration of Issac's work style and process.
UPDATE...
TEDBlog has a far more detailed overview of Issac's talk and the whole session.
"TED2008: Thomas Krens and the remedy for boredom" Ethan Zuckerman's blog
"TED2008: Beauty is survival, boredom is style" Ethan Zuckerman's blog
ted2008, ted
This session is hosted by June Cohen, TED's Media Director.
She explains that Nancy Etcoff is sick, so was unable to attend and speak.
June poses some central questions...
What do we find beautiful and why?
Use to be assumed that beauty was from cultural learning, but today we find there is some science behind it. I assume this is referring to studies on symmetry and how this crossing cultures.
(commercial break)
Issac Mizrahi is up first. First designer ever invited to speak at TED.
Lot of his design ideas come from mistakes and tricks of the eye. He says interesting ones look like mistakes. He doesn't get inspired by research. He states that he's very lazy about research. He believes creativity should be like a bodily function.
Issac is very inspired by movies, especially the colors in them.
(video plays clips of women from old movies)
Color motivates him a lot. Rarely colors in nature though. Loves tarot card readings. Amusing.
He believes being slightly bored with everything is important for being a fashion designer... or you have to pretend to be slightly bored with everything. (lol)
Not sure if this session really explored the question or even a definition of beauty. It was more of an exploration of Issac's work style and process.
UPDATE...
TEDBlog has a far more detailed overview of Issac's talk and the whole session.
"TED2008: Thomas Krens and the remedy for boredom" Ethan Zuckerman's blog
"TED2008: Beauty is survival, boredom is style" Ethan Zuckerman's blog
ted2008, ted
TED... Day One Wrap Up
I didn't cover everything from the first day of TED, but other people did so check them out...
"TED2008: What is our place in the universe?" TEDBlog
"TED2008: Who are we? Answers from Louise Leakey, Wade Davis, Jill Taylor, Stephen Hawking and Chris Jordan"
(interesting that the TED blogger also went to Chris Jordan's site and picked the same pictures to post up:)
"TED Highlights Day One" Microclesia blog
"TED2008: Wade Davis - Cultural destruction or cultural survival?" Ethan Zuckerman's blog
"TED2008: Stephen Hawking answers the big questions" Ethan Zuckerman's blog
"Ted2008: Debating the Role of the Media" Ethan Zuckerman's blog
(another excellent overview by zuckerman. also this session wasn't streamed to Aspen and was a special program with BBC)
"TED Flash: Robin Williams to the Rescue" Condé Nast Portfolio blog
"TED@ASPEN 2008 Day 1" Howard Wright's blog
ted2008, ted
"TED2008: What is our place in the universe?" TEDBlog
"TED2008: Who are we? Answers from Louise Leakey, Wade Davis, Jill Taylor, Stephen Hawking and Chris Jordan"
(interesting that the TED blogger also went to Chris Jordan's site and picked the same pictures to post up:)
"TED Highlights Day One" Microclesia blog
"TED2008: Wade Davis - Cultural destruction or cultural survival?" Ethan Zuckerman's blog
"TED2008: Stephen Hawking answers the big questions" Ethan Zuckerman's blog
"Ted2008: Debating the Role of the Media" Ethan Zuckerman's blog
(another excellent overview by zuckerman. also this session wasn't streamed to Aspen and was a special program with BBC)
"TED Flash: Robin Williams to the Rescue" Condé Nast Portfolio blog
"TED@ASPEN 2008 Day 1" Howard Wright's blog
ted2008, ted
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
TED... Stephen Hawking
After Chris Jordan, there is a special video conference call from Stephen Hawking, who is the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University.
Brilliant man. Hawking also believes in determinism, which I wrote about in an old post here, "Is Man Determined or Free?" Excerpt:
Back to Hawking, he continued by stating his fear for the long-term survival of our species, “My only fear is this. The terror that stalks my mind is that we have arrived on the scene because of evolution. Because of naturalistic selection, and natural selection assumes natural rejection, which means we have arrived here because of our aggression. And my hope is that somehow we can keep from eating each other up for another 100 years. At that point science would have devised a scheme to take all of us into different planets of the universe and no one atrocity would destroy all of us at the same time.” (full post)
ted2008, ted
Brilliant man. Hawking also believes in determinism, which I wrote about in an old post here, "Is Man Determined or Free?" Excerpt:
Back to Hawking, he continued by stating his fear for the long-term survival of our species, “My only fear is this. The terror that stalks my mind is that we have arrived on the scene because of evolution. Because of naturalistic selection, and natural selection assumes natural rejection, which means we have arrived here because of our aggression. And my hope is that somehow we can keep from eating each other up for another 100 years. At that point science would have devised a scheme to take all of us into different planets of the universe and no one atrocity would destroy all of us at the same time.” (full post)
ted2008, ted
TED@Aspen... Chris Jordan, Artist
Chris Jordan just finished his talk. Great presentation of his art, thinking and passion. Inspirational. He spoke from his recent work:
Running the Numbers
An American Self-Portrait
"This series looks at contemporary American culture through the austere lens of statistics. Each image portrays a specific quantity of something: fifteen million sheets of office paper (five minutes of paper use); 106,000 aluminum cans (thirty seconds of can consumption) and so on. My hope is that images representing these quantities might have a different effect than the raw numbers alone, such as we find daily in articles and books. Statistics can feel abstract and anesthetizing, making it difficult to connect with and make meaning of 3.6 million SUV sales in one year, for example, or 2.3 million Americans in prison, or 410,000 paper cups used every fifteen minutes. This project visually examines these vast and bizarre measures of our society, in large intricately detailed prints assembled from thousands of smaller photographs. The underlying desire is to emphasize the role of the individual in a society that is increasingly enormous, incomprehensible, and overwhelming..." (full text at his website)
So Chris presented various facts while showing his work...
40 million paper cups are used everyday in the U.S.
1/4 of the people in prison are in the U.S.
2.3 million Americans were incarcerated in 2007.
1,100 people die each day from smoking.
1/3 of all drug overdose deaths in the U.S. are by prescription drugs.
384,000 breast augmentations in the U.S. in 2006. The pictures below are 32,000 Barbies, equal to the number of elective breast augmentation surgeries performed monthly in the U.S. in 2006.
Jordan continues by stating his concerns...
"I fear that we aren't feeling enough... there is no sense of outrage any more... there is no national joy...
We're dealing with numbers in the billions and trillions...
We can't make meaning out of today's enormous amounts of data..."
So these concerns led to his work. A visual representation of these out of control numbers. So his big question was, "How do we change?"
Definitely inspirational.
AFTERTHOUGHTS...
Since this is the first conference I've tried live blogging at, I found myself to be lame so far:) Anyway, Chris Jordan's art and statistics got me thinking...
"2.3 million Americans were incarcerated in 2007." So what does this mean? We're an overzealous society when it comes to imprisoning people or criminals? Is this a statistic that reflects the most orderly society on our planet? We have review and change our legal and criminal justice system?
"1/3 of all drug overdose deaths in the U.S. are by prescription drugs." So what do we do? Do create an awareness campaign on this issue? Will this be effective? Are there gaps at the retail level that allow for this abuse? Do we push on lawmakers to regulate this space better? Who are these deaths? Teens? Twenty-somethings?
"384,000 breast augmentations in the U.S. in 2006." Did Chris say this was a majority of woman under 20 years old? 18 years old? When did this shift to younger women occur? How? Media messages burned into young women that enhanced breasts make them more beautiful? Misleading advertisements by plastic surgeons? Is our society becoming more shallow?
ted2008, ted
Running the Numbers
An American Self-Portrait
"This series looks at contemporary American culture through the austere lens of statistics. Each image portrays a specific quantity of something: fifteen million sheets of office paper (five minutes of paper use); 106,000 aluminum cans (thirty seconds of can consumption) and so on. My hope is that images representing these quantities might have a different effect than the raw numbers alone, such as we find daily in articles and books. Statistics can feel abstract and anesthetizing, making it difficult to connect with and make meaning of 3.6 million SUV sales in one year, for example, or 2.3 million Americans in prison, or 410,000 paper cups used every fifteen minutes. This project visually examines these vast and bizarre measures of our society, in large intricately detailed prints assembled from thousands of smaller photographs. The underlying desire is to emphasize the role of the individual in a society that is increasingly enormous, incomprehensible, and overwhelming..." (full text at his website)
So Chris presented various facts while showing his work...
40 million paper cups are used everyday in the U.S.
1/4 of the people in prison are in the U.S.
2.3 million Americans were incarcerated in 2007.
1,100 people die each day from smoking.
1/3 of all drug overdose deaths in the U.S. are by prescription drugs.
384,000 breast augmentations in the U.S. in 2006. The pictures below are 32,000 Barbies, equal to the number of elective breast augmentation surgeries performed monthly in the U.S. in 2006.
Jordan continues by stating his concerns...
"I fear that we aren't feeling enough... there is no sense of outrage any more... there is no national joy...
We're dealing with numbers in the billions and trillions...
We can't make meaning out of today's enormous amounts of data..."
So these concerns led to his work. A visual representation of these out of control numbers. So his big question was, "How do we change?"
Definitely inspirational.
AFTERTHOUGHTS...
Since this is the first conference I've tried live blogging at, I found myself to be lame so far:) Anyway, Chris Jordan's art and statistics got me thinking...
"2.3 million Americans were incarcerated in 2007." So what does this mean? We're an overzealous society when it comes to imprisoning people or criminals? Is this a statistic that reflects the most orderly society on our planet? We have review and change our legal and criminal justice system?
"1/3 of all drug overdose deaths in the U.S. are by prescription drugs." So what do we do? Do create an awareness campaign on this issue? Will this be effective? Are there gaps at the retail level that allow for this abuse? Do we push on lawmakers to regulate this space better? Who are these deaths? Teens? Twenty-somethings?
"384,000 breast augmentations in the U.S. in 2006." Did Chris say this was a majority of woman under 20 years old? 18 years old? When did this shift to younger women occur? How? Media messages burned into young women that enhanced breasts make them more beautiful? Misleading advertisements by plastic surgeons? Is our society becoming more shallow?
ted2008, ted
At TED@Aspen
So Christine and I are at TED@Aspen, which is the smaller venue for TED. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design and is a conference held annually in Monterey, CA since 1984.
Our mission: Spreading ideas.
We believe passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and ultimately, the world.
1,300 people are in Monterey while 300 of us are watching from Aspen. After Chris Anderson's opening words, Louis Leakey is up first...
ted2008, ted
Our mission: Spreading ideas.
We believe passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and ultimately, the world.
1,300 people are in Monterey while 300 of us are watching from Aspen. After Chris Anderson's opening words, Louis Leakey is up first...
ted2008, ted
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