Inspirational TED talks

earthbound

I am a huge fan of TED... ! What more can I say. The range of subject matter is quite enormous, some of the most interesting and inspirational people in the world, leaders in almost every field possible, getting together to talk.

If you have 10-20 minutes to spare have a quick look at TED http://www.ted.com/

If you're already a fan and have watched an interesting talk recently why don't you add it here, share it with others, it is meant to be about "Ideas worth spreading".

Here are a couple to begin with..

Quote:

John Hunter puts all the problems of the world on a 4'x5' plywood board -- and lets his 4th-graders solve them. At TED2011, he explains how his World Peace Game engages schoolkids, and why the complex lessons it teaches -- spontaneous, and always surprising -- go further than classroom lectures can.

Quote:

Fiorenzo Omenetto shares 20+ astonishing new uses for silk, one of nature's most elegant materials -- in transmitting light, improving sustainability, adding strength and making medical leaps and bounds. On stage, he shows a few intriguing items made of the versatile stuff.

Simo

so nothing to do with Tooheys Extra Dry then :dontknow:

RupertofOZ

Simo wrote:

so nothing to do with Tooheys Extra Dry then :dontknow:

Nah Simo... that'd be PISS talk...

BullwinkleII

thanks for that. I have a feeling I've seen some stuff from this organization before, but didnt realize there was so much more

Something about a dude who put free Internet enabled computers in walls in india. Amazing stuff. Ill try to find it and share it.

BullwinkleII

cool. I found it in a skype chat history.

and it turns out to be a TED thing

It's a small world after all.

http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_the_child_driven_education.html

Brian Fanner

Yip. I love ted! After reading the news watch a ted talk. Balances things out.

Delgrade

ummm looks interesting especialy the one about silk but whats the TED acronym? stand for, i couldn't see it on that link you posted EB

i bet its very obvious but im short of sleep, coffee and time this morning

Cheers
pete

swanberg

Technology, Entertainment, Design.

TheNative

Love TED talks.

This gal is a brain scientist and had a stroke. Her recount of the event is absolutely amazing. She talks of being in the present moment, something that is taught by a type of meditation I practice called Vipassana meditation (translates as insight meditation). Many of the practitioners of this meditation (myself included) have experiences similar to what she did during her stroke but without all the debilitating effects. Anyhow a great talk, enjoy.

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/jill_ ... sight.html

earthbound

I like that Indian educator guy with the computers Bully...

What a great experiment seeing if children can learn all by themselves. Go to a Tamil village give them information in English on a computer about biotechnology, see if they can teach themselves.. Come back after 2 months and they all say "no, we learnt nothing, we looked at it every day but we don't understand it."

And a 12 year old girl raises her hand and says "Apart from the fact that imperfect replication of the DNA molecule causes genetic disease, we understood nothing else"...

How cool....

TheNative

earthbound wrote:

Fiorenzo Omenetto shares 20+ astonishing new uses for silk, one of nature's most elegant materials -- in transmitting light, improving sustainability, adding strength and making medical leaps and bounds. On stage, he shows a few intriguing items made of the versatile stuff.

That would make one slick AP system. The tanks, pipes, and pumps all made of silk instead of plastic. You could even make the media silk gravel with iron and other micro nutrients built in.

Then again, I can't even afford a silk shirt...

mantis

Yeah the silk thing is amazing but I wonder how cheap they could make things like coffee cups. The bits for the human body on the other hand could be great

TheNative

Climbing the giant coastal redwood trees, the tallest trees in the world. I love to visit these trees. I have even climbed one myself during the Climb the Giants activity for the California Arborists Association. Truly a spectacular experience.

http://www.ted.com/talks/richard_presto ... trees.html

TheNative

Basically plants have intelligence in the roots.

http://www.ted.com/talks/stefano_mancus ... gence.html

BullwinkleII

TheNative wrote:

Basically plants have intelligence in the roots.

http://www.ted.com/talks/stefano_mancus ... gence.html

I'll never talk in my normal voice again. I'm adopting this guy's speech rhythm.

I spent hours as a lad talking to vegetarians, trying to convince them that plants were not dissimilar to not-so-smart animals before I got wise(ish) and stopped caring what anyone does. Sorry vegitanarians, I dont know what I was thinking.

But this guy would have been handy back then.

It always struck me as odd that crystal growth played in fast forward looks a lot like all this stuff as well.

I dont think it's so amazing that plants act like animals, I think its amazing that we think animals are so special.

Everything else in the world is just as complex, and wants to just get on with doing its thing with just as much of a sense of direction.

The clue is that every time anyone talks about anything being at the pinnacle of evolution, you know to tune out. I cant do what a fly does, or a bean sprout. Everything that's made it to this point is on exactly that same pinnacle. Except [[stuff deleted] insert your least favourite politician here]. I don't know what happened there.

This TED business rocks... keep em coming

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