Recent Comments Blog

Blog: Quote of the week: Malcolm Gladwell – November 20, 2008

Malcolm is one of my favorite writers, but he might have added something, though. Nothing is more frustrating for a writer than to have someone lift his ideas without giving credit--and nowadays, a link.

Blog: Welcome to Nollywood, Nigeria's gonzo film industry: Franco Sacchi on TED.com – November 20, 2008

Full lenght feature film in just a week? How do they do that?

Blog: We've got captcha – November 20, 2008

I'm actually disappointed on two levels with this CAPTCHA announcement. Firstly. that you're announcing it as a feature rather than a bloody nuisance.

Secondly, that you're dressing it up as "helping to digitize old books" and being beneficial to my security.

There are elegant ways to prevent email spam, CAPTCHA in this form ain't one of them.

Blog: A new phase opens tomorrow for the Charter for Compassion – November 19, 2008

Compassion as the Right Thing To Do

Blog: The Clock of the Long Now, and where to put it: Stewart Brand on TED.com – November 18, 2008

Hopefully, my consciousness will be able to surf the internet for the next 10,000 years. If so, I'd like to watch all the TED lectures. ONE CAVEAT, THOUGH. Change the damn musical introduction and get to the meat, PLEASE. Actually, for all us mortals, I think TED should dispense with the same, boring introduction after, say, 30 video views or something. Deal?

Blog: Jules: A robot that mimics faces – November 17, 2008

whew

Blog: Investing in a free press: An archive talk from Sasa Vucinic on TED.com – November 15, 2008

Bonds to support freedom of speech? I am not sure. On the one hand I can see how important it is to fight dictatorship. On the other hand, why would that freedom have to be economized and not be appreciated as our second or first nature? How can I be sure that my investment is not used to support only the freedom of my political enemy? What just happened in the US and EU, that news networks started endorsing political correctness and presidential candidates, in their own interest: would that be where my bonds were put? That is no truth-loving press, throwing out independent confirmation, but that is groupsism on a grand scale, much like a post market crash, pre WWII political climate.

Blog: Google Flu Trends uses web search to track real flu – November 15, 2008

Google is way too powerful! When will Congress put a check on Google's market reach and power? The data they are collecting and other projects, will put Privacy advocates on noticee

Blog: Quote of the week: Malcolm Gladwell – November 14, 2008

Glad to know we are appreciated.

Blog: Synesthesia on demand – November 13, 2008

This is very interesting I love the how you can just click colors, this could be applied to people who might have cancer or some other disease that my make them color blind or vision impaired. Great work here !

Blog: 50 million TEDTalks viewed, more on the way – November 13, 2008

I think as the TED talks grow it might be easier to view them from some sort of central file server, such as bit torrent.

Blog: TED's Miro player launches today – November 13, 2008

I was wonder if could be possible as well to have the source code, I would like to enable a home function might make it a little more efficient with the navigation.

Blog: Help translate the Charter for Compassion video – November 13, 2008

And (agreeing with cotton M and disagreeing with Richard C) let's not forget that those who use religion to preach hatred and violence are organized in frameworks built around religion, misguided in my opinion, but still, the glue in a lot of the fundamentalists movements of different types is couched in religious terms. The existence of those organizations argues for this kind of organized response. Somebody has to remind people that the violence and hatred groups are splinter groups, misunderstanding the core teachings of whatever religion they happen to use as the host.

Blog: Help translate the Charter for Compassion video – November 12, 2008

Richard C-

I truly understand your point but it isn't practical either. Maybe agreeing on a final charter is an impossible task but the conversation trying to get there would be invaluable. How else would an understanding of compassion happen? In silence? Yes compassion starts one person at a time but let's not throw road blocks like "codify" & "fettering" in the road in the very first mile, please.

Blog: Help translate the Charter for Compassion video – November 12, 2008

Good video but the concept really doesn't work for me. The last thing we need is to codify compassion/ kindness by fettering it in a "charter". Just do it. The world has enough charters, I think.

Blog: BumpTop demo from TED2007, now on TED.com – November 11, 2008

Hey Anad koool stuff.. nice imagination way back in 2007. Love such creative stuff.

Keep goin! gud luck :)

Blog: The powerful link between creativity and play: Tim Brown on TED.com – November 10, 2008

Tim Brown makes some wonderfully valid points in this presentation. He notes that children ask the best questions, because they are less predisposed to prejudge. As he mentioned, the question "what is it?" is often closely followed by "what can I do with it?", leading to some really creative play with cardboard boxes and aluminum foil. Just awesome! I've already started looking a little differently at the craft supplies when I go shopping.

Blog: The story of Serious Play – November 10, 2008

Tim Brown shared some great stories in this talk. I never knew that Robert McKim had conducted experiments in the '60s, introducing peyote to product designers, to see if it enhanced their creativity. The link between mind-altering drugs and creativity has long seemed to be the case with rock musicians, for example. I hear time and again, "when that band got sober, their music started to suck". In fact, it might even begin to explain such things as the Pontiac Aztek...

Blog: Where's the gorilla? – November 8, 2008

I could have sworn I saw this clip somewhere on YouTube..

Guitar Hype!

Blog: Watch Rives' ad for European TV – November 8, 2008

Not bad.. but so far short of the real Rives performance.

Then again, I expect this company knows their viewers better than I.

But still... where's the big "a-HA!" moment in this ad?

Not like the one in his more recent Emoticon performance, or his Tear your head off Def Poetry Jam gig.

Those be some wicked rap-rock performances.

Rives uncaged is the best. Let's hope he keeps the same depth of performance and intimacy of connection that he's known for. This is why we return over and over: always something new, even on the 10th view.