Tuesday, August 30, 2016
VT's TED Talks
I am currently reading TED Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking by Chris Anderson, and it has gotten me to thinking that I have, over the last several years not been living up to my own assignments and have not been watching enough of these TED talks that I so fervently want you to view, digest, enjoy, and learn from. I have decided that one of my goals this year will be to watch a TED talk per school day and then post about them here. I do have some catching up to do, and that won't happen right away, but I hope to have at least 180 done by the end of the school year. My intention is to watch them after right after school (at least on Wednesdays and Fridays) around 3:10-3:30. You are more than welcome to come join me and we can watch them together if you would like and scheduling permits. Those talks that we watch together are always available for you to respond to in/on (?) the appropriate post each quarter.
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1: Steven Pinker: The Surprising Decline in Violence
ReplyDeleteI'll admit that Steven Pinker is one of my favorite academics of the modern age. I have read several of his books: The Language Instinct, The Stuff of Thought, and one other whose title escapes me right now. When I heard there were multiple talks by him on TED.com, I was very enthusiastic about watching them. This talk, while very interesting about the decline in violence and some of its possible causes over the last few millenia, was unfortunately, not as dynamic I would have hoped. His ideas are intriguing and worth thinking about, but as a public speaker he seemed a little nervous and not particularly on his game.
What was interesting was the even though we just finished a century that included 2 world wars, multiple genocides, and all of the violence that we watch on the news, it was actually much less violent than previous centuries. Examples of the overly violent times of the past might be common burnings at the stake, being drawn and quartered, burning cats alive as public entertainment, etc.
My opinion is that this TED talk is worth watching, but maybe not as dynamic and interesting as a Hans Rosling talk.
2. Stuart Brown: The Importance of Play
ReplyDeleteThis is a talk about the importance of play in the animal and human world. The main idea being that we are built to play throughout our lives and not use the play itself as practice for being an adult. A little high-minded, the talk is interesting mostly for its implications about how we should continue to play around in all sorts of ways outside of our normal routine in order to keep our minds elastic and youthful.
3: Jonathan Temperman: The Risky Politics of Progress
ReplyDeleteUsing three main examples of political systems that made bold moves that have stabilized their cultures, Temperman talks about the hope he sees in the world to become better. Canada (I didn't know that in the 60s Canada was nearly on the verge of collapse; who'd a thunk?), Indonesia, and Mexico all had truly desperate problems until their democratically elected politicians went out and made bold moves that involved a great deal of compromise and for the most part completely stabilized their countries. A truly prescient and hopeful talk during our election cycle that I wish would be seen by our next congress and president.
4. Keith Barry: Brain Magic
ReplyDeleteI've seen this one before, and I still can't figure out how he does what he does. I have a healthy amount of skepticism about things like this and almost always believe that these are just very clever tricks that have to do with a certain extra amount of paying attention to phenomena that most people don't pay attention to, but.... I know that I have spent a great deal of time reading literature that is fantastical in nature in the barest of hopes, I think, that some of that might be possible. I don't think it is, but it would be cool nonetheless.
5. Christopher Bell: Bring on the Female Superheroes
ReplyDeleteA great talk about the gender inequities of superhero movies and how that sends a terrible message to young girls and boys. I think this is a must see movie for all young parents as well as everybody else. The stranglehold that media companies have on movies and how they portray and market female superheroes is deplorable and can only be modified by the consumers that purchase the merchandise that is sold from the movies. Girls, you should watch this one, for sure. Boys, you MUST watch this one and change.
6. Paul Nicklen: Animal Tales from Icy Wonderlands
ReplyDeleteThis is a National Geographic wildlife photographer who is showcasing some of his work from the Arctic and Antarctic. He shows some amazing pictures of bears and seals and intersperses his stories about the pictures with some pleas to help save these awesome animals from humanity's acceleration of climate change.
7. Courtney Martin: The New American Dream
ReplyDeleteOops, I wasn't logged in correctly, so this didn't work the first time. This talk is about how the Old American Dream fueled by consumption and buying more and bigger things is increasingly becoming defunct. Her discussion of choosing a New American Dream that is less focused on consumption and more focused on becoming more fulfilled, content, and happy with what we have and helping those around us is an interesting and provocative tale.
8. Misha Glenny: How Global Crime Networks Work
ReplyDeleteA BBC Journalist who had worked the Eastern Bloc back in the 80s talks about how the security networks of the crumbling Eastern Bloc ended up moving from failed states into the Eastern European organized crime syndicates in the 90s, including the Romanian Olympic weightlifters. He ends with discussing the offshore banking industry as well as cyber crime. Interesting and terrifying at the same time.
9: Thomas Thwaites: How I Built a Toaster-From Scratch
ReplyDeleteAnother BBC Journalist, taking a quote from Douglas Adam that said modern man could not built a toaster, and could only barely make a sandwich. He is very animated, but dismayed when he buys a toaster kit online and it has 400+ parts. He decides to try to make 5 of the basic ingredients: steel, copper, mica, and plastic. He smelted all of this by himself. Amusing.
10: Eric Sanderson: New York-Before the City
ReplyDeleteSanderson and his group create a 3D Map of Manhattan called the Mannahatta project. The purpose was to make a map of what Hudson would have seen when he "discovered" New York City. Pretty cool stuff. The Muir web concept really starts to make one think about how interdependent everything is to everything else.
11. Lidia Yuknavitch: The Beauty of Being a Misfit
ReplyDeleteNot my favorite, but a good message. Understanding that all people don't necessarily "fit" into the mold of society doesn't mean that people who mis-fit the mold have a story that is both beautiful and worth being told is a great thing.
12. Kenneth Lacovara: Hunting for Dinosaurs Showed Me Our Place in the Universe
ReplyDelete"The library of Earth is an old one and it has no Librarian" is the controlling metaphor or controlling line of this talk. What a great metaphor to use in how to discover dinosaurs around the world. This is the story of how Lacovara found Dreadnaughtus (fears nothing) Schrani, a 65 ton herbivore. Lacovara uses this metaphor and this dinosaur to give us a chance to understand the improbability of the long evolution of Humanity and how precarious and fleeting.
13. Dave Brain: What a Planet Needs to Sustain Life
ReplyDeleteLife needs only three things: Energy, Food or Nourishment (all organisms get their nourishment from 6 elements (though he doesn't go into what they are)), and water. Specifically liquid water. Brain focuses on the liquid water aspect and the only planets in our solar system that have the liquid water: Earth, Venus, and Mars. Venus is too hot, Mars is too cold and its atmosphere too thin. Earth is the Goldilocks. I like this guy as a presenter. He is dry, human, self-deprecating and funny. I think he would be a great Professor.
14. Tim Urban: Inside the Mind of a Master Procrastinator
ReplyDeleteTrying to explain to the non-procrastinators of the world what it was like to be a procrastinator. Urban's amusing anecdotes and drawings of the rational decision maker and the instant gratification monkey illustrate the difference between people who procrastinate or don't, or whether we're all procrastinators.
Spencer Wells: A Family Tree for Humanity
ReplyDeleteI picked this one because there was an article in today's paper about this very thing, though much more advanced. This scientist talks about the DNA evidence, coupled with climate science that explains that we are all, ALL, from Africa sometime 60,000 or so years ago. He also talks about a project where people can order a DNA kit and submit their genetic blueprint to help the overall project of filling in a Genetic Family tree of the whole species. through the Genographic Project at this website: genographic.nationalgeographic.com . The proceeds from the DNA tests help National Geographic and its project help indigenous populations around the world. I looked at the website and it looks cool, but the DNA kit is $180. I have wanted to do one of these for a while, but that's a little steep for me right now.
16. Russell Foster: Why Do We Sleep?
ReplyDeleteFoster starts out with information about how much we sleep and some historical quotes about sleep from Shakespeare to Margaret Thatcher. Then he starts talking about the processes that start sleep and then 3 of the hypotheses about why we sleep: Restoration, Energy Conservation, and improved Brain functions in memory and processing. He then spends some serious time talking about what happens to us when we don't get enough sleep. This is a good talk for adolescents to watch.
17. David Camarillo: Why Helmets Don't Prevent Concussions-and What Might?
ReplyDeleteCamarillo starts with a video from the CDC that shows a mock-up of how a concussion happens. He both agrees and disagrees with some of the videos parts and then talks about how his research group uses a mouth guard to study the way the brain moves when hit (he is a Stanford professor and uses the Stanford Football team as a study group). He then shows a video of a Stanford receiver getting his bell wrung. He then goes on to discuss the idea that concussions are actually thought to be damage to the center of the brain. He shows some images of a former football player's brain and an average brain and the parts of brain that are actrophied because of CTE.
18. Erin McKean: Go Ahead, Make Up New Words!
ReplyDeleteMcKean is a Lexicographer who talks about how the speakers of the language make up new words and that this a good thing. She then gives 6 ways to make up new words. 1. Steal words from other languages. 2. Squishing two words together (compounding). 3. Blending words "Breakfast + Lunch = Brunch" 4. Functional shift-Google. 5. Back formation "Editor-edit" 6. Acronyms NASA. Make words.
19. Margaret Heffernan: Forget the Pecking Order at Work
ReplyDeleteShe starts out by explaining a study done on chickens and their pecking order by showing how selecting for the most productive chickens and only allowing them to procreate. This created a group of chickens that peck each other to death. This turns out to mimic our workplaces. The most productive workplaces or successful teams are not the ones dominated by super smart groups. The contrast is that they are the ones who give each other equal time, are socially connected and have more women in them. Helpfulness and getting to know each other is the key to getting people to work well and productively. Investing in getting your group/business to work together is money and time well-spent.
20. Simon Sinek: Why Good Leaders Make You Feel Safe
ReplyDeleteSinek uses the idea behind Military service and the idea that this environment is setup to build the trust and cooperation that is necessary to make us sacrifice ourselves for our comrades because they would do it for us to try to understand why that mentality is not present in the business world. His core premise is that, like the title says, the Leader who spends the capital to make the subordinates feel safe makes the organization much more likely to succeed. He references the CEO of Nextjump who says, "If you had a child come home with a C, would you fire them?" This CEO established a plan of lifetime jobs. You couldn't be fired for performance issues, and if you do have issues, you get coaching rather than being fired, just like that child would with a C.
21. Regina Hartley: Why the Best Hire Might Not Have the Perfect Resume
ReplyDeleteHartley is a Human Resources Director who publicly understands that people who don't have a perfect resume might actually be a better candidate because, in her words, "people who aren't silver spoons might be better than the scrapper." That she likes people who weren't given every advantage like the silver spoons in life. People who have succeeded with disability know they are who they are because of the disability. They have Post Traumatic Growth.
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ReplyDeleteWhat really matters at the end of life |BJ Miller
ReplyDeleteIn this TED Talk,BJ Miller, a man who gained experience and inspiration from an incident earlier in his life, Discusses how to accept death as a way of life. I personally enjoyed hearing his personal experiences of certain patients, such as frank who did what he could and wanted to before dying despite others discouraging him. BJ Miller emphasizes how through loss or death humans can transmute their situations into things such as art, courage, or music. BJ Miller describes how everyone does not fear what is after death but how they die and how much they suffer. BJ Miller turns this around as to the more one loses or "dies" the more they learn to live. All together this TED Talk made for an enlightening experience.
Whats a good life? | Robert Waldinger
From the title of this TED Talk i had inferred an interesting presentation on what makes a human being happy. Unfortunately for me this TED Talk was quite monotonous and even repetitive, I felt as though Waldinger stating that relationships are what make a human happy is a statement thats been made many times over. And the worse part was that he didnt even begin explaining what makes a human being happy until a little more than halfway through the presentation. I didnt catch any inspiration from this as he merely stated what can be considered well known facts. Such as a majority of millennials goals for their future was to become rich. The fact that humans believe happiness can be found in material possessions has been prominent in U.S. society since God knows when. I felt this TED Talk was a waste of my time and I honestly regretted watching it almost instantaneously.
Looks aren't everything | Cameron Russel
ReplyDeleteThis TED Talk was Fairly interesting in that it discussed one of the most prominent issues in modern day society. Self Image. Although this topic has been run over and over, i couldnt help but feel captivated by Miss Russel's ability to demolish all thoughts prior to her talk. When she began i thought to myself how she was gonna tell people to love themselves and love their bodies. I was beyond pleased to find that she instead provided personal experiences and answered questions she had personally been asked throughout her career. She revealed that her on the front of a magazine, had no representation of who she was. I also appreciated when she would address the awkwardness in the room almost as if she could read the minds of her audience. My favorite part of this presentation was when she discussed how she was handed a good deck in life and how shes making bank off of it, but despite this she still every waking minute of the day is insecure about her body. This TED Talk provided me with a new perspective on the subject of body image, for which I am grateful.
Why am I so gay? | Thomas Lloyd
This Ted Talk I found intriguing as it directly addressed not just hiding homosexuality but hiding yourself as a human being. I think the reason i resonated with this so well is because I too have shared these experiences with Thomas Lloyd. I grew up on the east coast where my family had a religious background. I was always the flamboyant one in the family and even thought there were two individual lesbian family members, my family had never experienced a gay family member. In the TED Talk Lloyd discusses how "changing yourself uses more energy than changing your surroundings" This line by far was the most influential on me throughout this twenty minute TED Talk. I had (and still to this day) always hidden who I was from my family. This TED Talk didn't really give me any new perspective but it did remind me of things that should still be prevalent in my everyday life, and for that I am appreciative.
Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are | Amy Cuddy
ReplyDeleteI chose this Ted Talk due to its immense amount of views and its title. I figured this Ted Talk was going to be an enlightening presentation for me. When I took Anthropology last year people watching became somewhat of a habit, and as a result profiling. I think Ms. Cuddy had very good points and had the evidence to back it up such as evidence collected in a classroom pertaining to dominant personalities and how their behavior reflects these traits. The Ted Talk itself was quite interesting unfortunately I found the presenter to either accumulate immense amounts of saliva or just have very moist lips, or maybe a combination either way this bugged me the entire 20 minutes of the presentation and i honestly kept myself dealing with that by repeating "maybe I'll get lucky and it will stop or she'll get hit by an alpaca" She was also very awkward and tended to stumble over words almost as if she drank too much coffee prior to her presentation. Overall the topic of discussion was interesting just the presenter could have done a better job.
My Philosophy For a Happy Life | Sam Berns
This Ted Talk added a new spin onto a topic commonly discussed throughout society. That is "how do we become happy" Many people have different challenges that create obstacles on the path of achieving happiness. Some have bad home lives, some are not school oriented, some unemployed and broke, others just plain miserable. This young teenager by the name of Sam Berns incorporates his rare disease (progeria) with which he shares with 350 other people in the world. Despite his disease Sam Berns is a student in high honors who plays in percussion making him a successful person with or without his disability incorporated into the formula. This Ted Talk addresses how Sam kept himself happy despite the struggle with his condition, and how he would like to share his philosophy with the audience. Although many aspects of his philosophy have been discussed already Mr. Berns does it in a way which enchants the audience to try a little harder.
How Do You Define Yourself? | Lizzie Velasquez
ReplyDeleteThis Ted Talk was by far one of my favorites if not my favorite. The presenter was very comfortable and comedic when addressing such a serious topic. She mentioned what her presentation was on briefly and jumped right into demonstrating the benefits of her disease with which she gains no weight. To many this would be a challenge and for many parents as well. Lizzie Velasquez and her parents perceive it no such way. Ms. Velasquez incorporated comedy, experience, and tragedy all together in order to create a Ted Talk that was absolutely entrancing. Many Ted Talks I found myself becoming restless in this case my eyes were almost glued to the screen. This woman walked through her problems with self-image with elegance first discussing how she struggled to accept her disease and later how accepting it made her life easier. ms. Velasquez inspired me more than any other presenter thus far and I feel like I know her as a person rather than just a distant presenter.
Im 17 | Kate Simonds
This Ted Talk is another one of my favorites not because it provided an enlightening experience, but because its been something I've been debating with elderlies about since I was 14. Too often teens are ignored by adults and too often we are dismissed as relevant human beings. Kate Simonds finally illuminates this to the audience, for which I cannot be more grateful. Ever since i was young and told my opinion was irrelevant and I wasn't responsible enough or smart enough to be an adult. Even to this day I still face this criticism, despite having a job, owning and caring for my own pet. Buying and insuring my own car, and not to mention my GPA. I have always made the argument "So what? When I'm 18 is there some sort of chemical/biological/neurological/anatomical transformation in which I become and 'adult'" I felt like this Ted Talk vocalized this very well (although there was a rough patch or two) Because of Ms. Simonds I feel as though the adults are a little more enlightened and us teenagers a little more confident.