Post your responses to the 8 TED talks that you watch in this section for 2nd Quarter. Your responses should be about a paragraph. These responses should be anything that you think is important, cool, uncool, interesting, uninteresting about the video you watched.
TED Talk #1: Let's Teach for Mastery, Not Test Scores by Sal Khan
ReplyDeleteIn the process of passing by the educational fork of college choices, I decided to enjoy a TED talk on education. As a student, Sal Khan from Khan Academy has always been a comforting voice during my struggles through highschool. To hear of his opinions on the role of education and the flaws that are present in the system today was refreshing, comforting, and coherent. Because the focus of this TED talk was a critique of teaching methods, the lesson I learn is less straight forward, but still valuable. It served as a reminder to not dismiss fundamentals in learning in order to increase the strength of my foundational knowledge. This has inspired me to review Algebra 2 concepts, since I rushed through that section of math and then proceeded to get a mediocre grade in Trigonometry, because it will most likely affect my learning in the future.
Ted talk response #1
ReplyDelete"How America's public schools keep kids in poverty" Kandice Sumner
Kandice Sumner includes personal experiences from her argument about education. The emotions that she has experienced throughout her life create passion in her presentation. Summer describes the disparity between schools and education in poverished cities compared to those that are more wealthy. She argues that the students in the wealthier cities have more resources that can lead to better education. It is not that her students in poverished cities do not want to learn but mostly that they don't believe they can under the circumstances. When they got new books Sumner said that people gifted the books to the students. One student asked "why would they want to give us new books?". This is the kind of attitude the students have because of their surroundings. She includes history. about segregation and education which helps the audience further understand her topic. Overall I really enjoyed this Ted talk because her personal family stories were very upfliting and inspiring.
Ted talk response #2
ReplyDelete"Enough with the fear of fat" Kelli Jean
This Ted talk describes the assumptions that are associated with the those who are fat. These type of characteristics include laziness, greed, poor health, and overall badness. These type of assumptions are advocated in the media, doctor offices, and in ourselves. The speaker takes responsibility for her weight and shares her high levels of confidence with the crowd. She claims herself to be an unpoligetic fat person. I consider her confidence to be powerful and inspiring. She includes a lot of humor which lightens the subject and makes the presentation enjoyable. The humor also helps keep the audience's attention. I really enjoyed this Ted talk because it shed light on a different side of the obesity topic.
Ted Talk Response #1
ReplyDelete"Jonathan Haidt: Can a divided America heal?"
This Ted talk is more of a conversation to talk about America and why we feel we have to be divided and what makes us fight so much that we feel we need to be regulated. He states that we are biologically made to fight against each other. Whereas in some countries were everyone is more equal, they are less likely to hate each other and find less reasons to fights, however in America he says we do not handle our anger or frustration well and we find ourselves wanting to fight and become more powerful than the person that is ahead of us. I feel like this would have been a stronger Ted talk if the guy was on stage by himself instead of with another guy there to ask him questions it makes it feel unnatural when he swithces from one topic to another.
TED Talk #1: This is what happens when you reply to spam email by James Veitch
ReplyDeleteThere really is no deeper meaning or underlying point o be discussed with this TED talk. It is simply ten minutes of comedic anecdote, not that I didn't appreciate this fact. The entirety of the monologue consists of Veitch describing the one instance in which he responded to a spam email, only to find that he enjoyed messing with the sender so much that he spent the next three years responding to all of the spam that he received. Really his only goal is to point out the absurdity of the claims of scam artists for comedic relief. The most absurd of these claims was the spam emailer who claimed to be Winnie Mandela, the second wife of Nelson Mandela, collecting funds for his health expenses. The fact that he had no second wife aside, Nelson Mandela was deceased at the time of this exchange, making the email incredibly amusing in its sad attempt at emotional appeal.
TED Talk #1
ReplyDelete“My journey from Marine to actor” by Adam Driver
In this TED talk, Star Wars actor, Adam Driver, talks about his life before becoming famous. The summer after he graduated high school, 9/11 struck and Driver felt a duty to join the military. He joined the United States Marines with a 1/1 Weapons Company. However, after a mountain biking accident, he broke his sternum and could not be deployed to Iraq. Driver was devastated and returned home as a civilian. Driver then shares his difficult transition from a soldier to a civilian. Driver auditioned for Juilliard and got in. He humorously discusses the difference between the military and acting school. In the military, he was put in life or death situations with his friends where they time again proved that they were not going to abandon each other. However, in acting school, no one looks out for anyone but themselves. Driver then goes on to discuss his nonprofit: Arts in the Armed Forces, which brings theater to the military. I thoroughly enjoyed this TED talk. It was funny, but also gave powerful insight on his unique experience as both a Marine and an actor. I would recommend this TED talk, especially to people who do not know much about the military.
TED Talk #2
ReplyDelete“This is Broken” by Seth Godin
In this TED Talk, Seth Godin, discusses how everything is broken in today’s society. He talks about his own experiences with retail and useless coupons and broken merchandise. He then goes on to discuss the “7 kinds of broken.” He states that the seven reasons why something might be broken are “not my job, selfish jerks, the world changed, I didn’t know, I’m not a fish, contradictions, and broken on purpose.” He says he’s sure that this is not the right list or the complete list, but that he’s just winging it. Godin is very funny and is effortlessly able to mix humor with truth. He provides funny examples of each kind of “broken.” I found this TED talk very enjoyable because it exposes some of the ridiculousness of society today. For example, as an example of “not my job,” he shows a picture of a park sign that says “Soccer not allowed. Soccer may only be played in archery range.” He says that it was no one’s job to fix the sign, so it just stayed like that. Overall, I enjoyed this TED Talk and would recommend it. It was the perfect combination of funny and truthful.
TED Talk #3
ReplyDelete“Do schools kill creativity?” by Sir Ken Robinson
In this TED Talk, Sir Ken Robinson discusses education and how schools currently do not promote creativity. He talks about how education is the most important thing in the world as the future generation will run the world one day. He also talks about children’s extraordinary capacity that children have. He says that all kids have extraordinary talent but that we, as a society, nullify their talent and creativity. In school, making a mistake is the worst thing you can do. As children grow up, they are frightened to be wrong. We run our businesses and do our jobs with a fear of being wrong. If we were able to change children’s education and promote creativity, our world would be a better place. This TED talk was very entertaining. Robinson has a great sense of humor and is able to make an intriguing case for promoting creativity in schools because of this sense of humor. I highly recommend this TED talk as it reminds you of the importance of creativity, no matter your age. As Robinson states, as we grow older, society only cares about one side of our brain, not the rest of us. For this reason, we must begin celebrating creativity and promoting it in children. This TED talk was both informative and humorous at the same time.
TED Talk #4
ReplyDelete“A teen just trying to figure it out” by Tavi Gevinson
In this TED Talk, 15 year old, Tavi Gevinson, discusses the lack of female role models for teenage girls in today’s society. She talks about how difficult it is to grow up and find yourself surrounded by the media. Because she had a difficult time finding strong, female role models, she created a fashion website, Rookie, that has created a safe, empowering place for teenage girls. She goes on to thank shows and movies such as Mad Men and Bridesmaids for having multi-faceted, strong, female protagonists. She states that she looks up to women like Lena Dunham who are creating powerful content. She finishes her TED talk by stating that everyone should just “be Stevie Nicks.” I did enjoy this TED Talk, but it was not my favorite. Gevinson had great content but did not have a great stage presence. Overall, I would recommend this TED talk for people interested in the subject, but it is not so unbelievably great that I think everyone needs to watch it. Gevinson was humorous, informative, and inspiring. She has created several online websites and blogs that inspire young girls everyday. She is a role model for everyone, but especially young girls. For this reason, I did enjoy Gevinson’s TED Talk.
TED Talk #5
ReplyDelete“Comics that ask ‘what if’?” by Randall Munroe
In this TED Talk, Randall Munroe discusses his own website. On his website, people send in hypothetical questions and he researches them and provides responses. While some people just send in homework problems they want help with, others send in valuable questions. For example, someone asked what would happen if a baseball was hit with a bat at a speed of 90% of the speed of light. Munroe provides a funny, sarcastic response to how the ball would explode and wreak havoc. Someone else asked him what size would a warehouse have to be to house every piece of data Google has on punchcards. Munroe calculated that it the cards were all stacked together, it would cover the entire region of New England up to a height of 5 kilometers. This is three times deeper than the glaciers that covered New England in the last ice age. Once he posted this on his website, someone sent him Google stamped punch cards. The punch cards had code on them. Munroe had his friends help him decode it and once decoding it, his browser opened Google’s official response to his article about the space needed to house all of it’s data. All Google said was “no comment.” I found this TED Talk both informative and interesting. It was also very comical. I would recommend this TED Talk to anyone interested in hypothetical questions and their solutions.
1. What really matters at the end of life | BJ Miller
ReplyDeleteIt was an interesting look at our hospital system. I don't really have a lot of personal ties to hospital deaths since I've always been separated from that when family members had to use hospitals. It was clear the speaker felt very passionate about both his life and making life better for other and it was nice to hear the things he was suggesting. They seem so small, but it makes you think about your own life differently. Life is easier to manage when it's small things, when you appreciate the small things. It was a pretty calming talk.
2. Rethinking infidelity ... a talk for anyone who has ever loved | Esther Perel
She was a good speaker. Her ideas were interesting but I think her closing was what made it a good talk to me. She just came off very up front about all the issues and didn't try to shy around things. At the same time, she didn't just go on and on about how terrible everything was. I liked the balance she struck. Weirdly enough it made me want to write stories. I think I'm just fascinated by human psychology.
3. Why domestic violence victims don't leave | Leslie Morgan Steiner
So apparently I'm just finding a bunch of depressing topics. This was a really interesting talk to me partially because I realized how much typical romances fall into the first two lines of domestic abuse. It was kind of startling to realize how easily the cycle could be completed in so many movie perfect couples. I'm a bit terrified by that realization. Maybe I'm just looking too much into things and finding patterns that aren't there. It just kind of seems like we as a culture romanticize these ideas and these patterns all up to the point the actual striking starts and even then she was totally right about the way we treat victims like it's their fault. It was really eerie.
4. How movies teach manhood | Colin Stokes
This was at least happier than my other topics but still kind of sad if you think about it. I like the message this guy is endorsing though and it is sad that so many movies are over when you win the quest by killing and get the love interest- and this happens with female protagonist movies too. Stories have so much power and it's important to tell stories that we want people to read and learn from. We have to make media that gives characters people can identify with no matter their age, race, or gender. So often we fall into tropes and tropes aren't always a bad thing but we need to make them with characters who are alive and understanding. I don't know. This talk just really gave me a lot of emotions about storytelling.
5. Why we choose suicide | Mark Henick | TEDxToronto
ReplyDeleteI am just a ball full of fun today wow. This was a talk that mentioned sense perception and brought that into why suicide becomes such a prevalent choice so I thought it was a very ToK way to approach it. Anxiety and depression limits the way we percieve the world and I knew that, but I never really thought of it that way, you know? Just so much of heightened dangers and an inability to see the happy things until your senses are so skewed its exhausting. Really interesting.
6. The slut, the spinster and the perfect woman: Martha Mosse at TEDxCoventGardenWomen
It was an okay talk. I'm kind of surprised she didn't incorporate any of her performance art since she said multiple times that she was a performance artist and started the talk by explaining she uses her art to fight these labels. Seemed like she could have done more with her talk to make it unique but she was still a good speaker.
7. How to practice emotional first aid | Guy Winch
The talk was okay but I could not get over this guy's voice. He sounds like a computer and it made me uncomfortable the entire time and hard to focus. He had a good message but the way he talked was so robotic. It was especially off-putting considering the fact he was talking about emotions and how it's important to acknowledge them as valid things you must take care of and he coupled with an emotionless computer voice and I'm pretty sure it's his real voice so yeah that bothered me. Ten out of ten do not recommend based on presentation alone.
8. I'm 17 | Kate Simonds | TEDxBoise
Okay so I think I'm just really moody right now because I hate this speaker too. Her message was to collaborate more with young minds instead of putting them down, but she was not a good speaker and was clearly nervous. Which is understandable, because she's seventeen and a bunch of educated grownups are judging her, but it still bugged me. It also made me want to give her a water bottle to chug, she was really obviously nervous. The message seemed just like a plea that's been said before with no real new spin and I'm in a bad mood so I didn't like it at all.
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ReplyDeleteTED Talk #6
ReplyDelete“404, the story of a page not found” by Renny Gleeson
In this TED Talk, Renny Gleeson discusses the 404 error page on the internet. The 404 page is when a website cannot provide the information asked for. Gleeson states that the 404 page is not what you are looking for, it is “a slap in the face.” Gleeson jokes that a 404 page is like if you were at Starbucks and the barista was out of skim milk so they walked out from behind the counter to get more and didn’t have any pants on. The 404 page is not what anyone wants to see online. Gleeson then includes a slideshow of funny 404 pages that express what it is like to get that error message: a man falling off their bike, an angry emoji, a face palm, etc. Gleeson ends his TED Talk with a more serious message: “every error is really a chance to build a better relationship.” I enjoyed this TED Talk, but I was not really sure about the importance of its content or message. I found this video in a playlist of funny TED Talks. However, unlike the rest of the talks I have watched, this one did not seem to be about anything important. 404 pages do not seem that significant in the long run. Gleeson was entertaining and his talk was funny, but I did not think it was a great TED talk. I would recommend this video to anyone who wants a short, funny video to watch. However, I do not think it is that great of a TED talk that everyone needs to watch it.
TED Talk #7
ReplyDelete“What will humans look like in 100 years?” by Juan Enriquez
In this TED talk, Juan Enriquez poses the question, “is it ethical to evolve the human body?’ He then goes on to discuss the evolution of prosthetics, both past and present. He says at some point, prosthetics form a symbiotic relationship with the body. In terms of hearing aids, they have become so effective, that people without hearing disabilities want them so that they can have “super-hearing.” As we improve prosthetics and science, we begin to alter who we are as people. Whereas before prosthetics were just wood or metal that helped disabled people walk, now, prosthetics alter us immensely. Enriquez then begins to discuss the future and what humanity will be like if we continue to alter our bodies so much. He states that if we want to live on Mars or other places in space, we will need to continue to evolve humans to adapt to changing circumstances. Overall, I enjoyed this TED talk. I found it very interesting to see the progression of prosthetics. I also found it interesting to hear how humans would have to adapt to live outside of the Earth. This video was interesting, however, it was also fairly boring. Enriquez spent the majority of the video describing things. I wish this TED talk had been slightly more interactive. However, it was fairly interesting and had interesting content. I would recommend this video to anyone interested in science or space.
TED Talk #8
ReplyDelete“Why you think you’re right--even if you’re wrong” by Julia Galef
In this TED talk, Julia Galef discusses the army and the difference between a soldier and a scout. Galef analogizes this difference with our own different mindsets. Galef then discusses Alfred Dreyfus and the degradation of Dreyfus. In the late 1800s, Dreyfus was convicted of treason, despite a lack of evidence. Galef goes on to talk about why we think we are right, even if we are wrong. She talks about motivated reasoning, which is defined as “trying to make some ideas win and others lose; the drive to attack or defend ideas.” Some ideas feel like our allies and we want them to win. Other ideas feel like our enemies and we want them to lose. Galef then discusses Colonel Picquart. Picquart was able to get Dreyfus exonerated, even though everyone else thought he was guilty. Picquart is defined as someone with “scout mindset.” Someone who is “trying to get an accurate picture of reality, even when that’s unpleasant or inconvenient.” But, why do some people have scout mindset and others don’t? Galef states that emotions dictate our mindset. I thoroughly enjoyed this TED talk. It was interesting and entertaining. Galef was very knowledgeable and had a good stage presence. Even though the majority of her TED talk was focused on an obscure event within the French military in the 1800s, she managed to keep it from being boring. I would highly recommend this TED talk.
TED Response #1: My escape from North Korea by Hyeonseo Lee
ReplyDeleteThe speaker herself was incredibly strong and powerful. The TED Talk covered her escape from North Korea and the struggle to survive as a refugee in China for many years. Hyeonseo grew up prideful of her country, completely oblivious to the outside world other than the fact that the United States, Japan, and South Korea were enemies. She explains her haunting memories of seeing a woman’s body on the ground, lifeless, first experiencing the horrors. After escaping, Lee spent years in China, attempting to hide her true identity in order to escape being sent back to North Korea. Her nightmares do not end there; Hyeonseo spent years trying to sneak her family out of North Korea, only for them to get caught multiple times in Laos and other countries. In fact, her family was caught and put in jail so many times that Hyeonseo had no more money left to bail them out. The fact that Lee stood on the stage in front of a large TED audience and described her terrifying experiences is strong already. I have a new appreciation for the comfortable life that I live here in the states. I have never felt that sense of fear for my life, always on the run, never able to reveal my true identity. Her TED talk was truly inspiring, powerful, and strong.
TED Response #2: Michael Muller
I had the privilege of seeing 12 TED talks live during TEDxSonomaCounty this quarter. One of the speakers was Michael Muller, who is a leading entertainment and fashion photographer. He has created the iconic movie poster images for The Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Iron Man. Muller had an immense fear of sharks as a child after watching Jaws. He would be too afraid to get even close to the water’s edge, fearing that the monster would jump out and eat him. He held this perspective for a long time before deciding to face his fears as an adult. Muller climbed into a cage, submerged into the ocean, coming face to face with a variety of different sharks. He realized that these creatures are not even close to the horrific beasts he had imagined for years. Instead, he felt a connection to these animals and started interacting with them outside of the cage. He photographs these sharks in their natural habitat in an attempt to convince the public that their skewed perspectives of the sharks is not reality. I got a little distracted because he said “you know” so often. However, Muller’s TED talk was interesting and I was captivated by his childhood story and the pictures he took of these sharks.
TED Response #3: Mary Carouba
I personally loved Mary Carouba’s TED Talk so much. She was engaging, funny, and inspirational throughout her talk. Carouba starts off light hearted, joking about the time limit TED gave her and how she rambles too much. She then begins to tell us a story about a young woman, addicted to drugs and given up on life; on the other hand is another woman, living her life with happiness and love, grateful for everything that has happened to her. In fact, both of these women are Carouba herself. Growing up, Mary did not have a strong relationship with her father and grew addicted to heroine, spending nights on the streets. By her father’s death, Carouba had nothing but love and respect for her father. However her luck does not get much better; she has liver failure and needs a transplant in order to live. A young teenage boy, who died in a car accident, donates the liver to her. Carouba falls into deep depression again, unable to express her gratitude to the boy’s parents. She turns her life around as a small expression of gratitude and now is involved with The Delancey Street Honors Program at Solano Prison. Her story is inspiring and shows how a different perspective can change anyone’s life.
TED Talk #4: Kevin Lafferty
ReplyDeleteKevin Lafferty is a professor and faculty member at UC Santa Barbara researching infectious diseases in marine systems. I enjoyed his TED talk because he was very engaging and cracked a few jokes along the way. His main point was that we may not be completely in charge of our personalities. An experiment found that there is a bacteria inside of fish that control their brains. Fish with this bacteria tend to swim more towards the surface of the water and behave in such ways that can lead to a larger chance of being eaten by seagulls. This same bacteria can exist in us as well, transferred to us by our cats (if they travel both inside and outside). An interesting fact from the talk is the difference in behavior for males and females with the bacteria. Females with this bacteria tend to be more outgoing and sociable, while the men with the bacteria are the complete opposite. Overall, Lafferty was entertaining and made me very suspicious whether or not my actions are my own or a bacteria making me do these things.
TED Talk #5: Rose McDermott
Rose McDermott is a professor at Brown University and has taught at Cornell, UC Santa Barbara, and Harvard. Her TED talk was based on her experiment whether our political views were based off of genetics. She tested hundreds of people, having them smell different odors and choosing if it was attractive or not. Her results surprisingly showed that there was indeed a correlation between what we find attractive and the political stance. Republicans found other republicans more pleasant smelling as is the same with democrats. McDermott’s research was very interesting; I definitely learned a lot and enjoyed her TED talk.
TED Talk #6: Gregory Clark
Gregory Clark has an impressive background. His education background includes degrees at King’s College, Cambridge, and Harvard, and faculty positions at Stanford and University of Michigan. He too talked about his experiment and how our economic status is also based on genetics. Clark explains that although parents always want their kids to succeed and have a better future than themselves, the economic status of the children are very often not very different. Even if children do end up in a better place than their parents, a look at the generations before them show that there is not much of a raise in status. Clark then proceeds to use many examples and traces a few families and their background. Indeed, the children had around the same amount of success as their great grandparents. Gregory Clark’s TED talk is very eye-opening, although I’m not quite convinced that his experiment will always prove true. Furthermore, Clark talked very quickly and I could barely read his powerpoint slides and graphs before he moved on to the next slide. Otherwise, I liked his talk and the different perspective on our economic status and achievements.
TED Talk #7: Luanne Nightingale and Matt Nightingale
ReplyDeleteBy far my favorite TED Talk of the evening was Luanne and Matt Nightingale. Luanne and Matt stand side by side on the stage, talking one after another, sharing their perspective on the same story. The talk begins on their wedding day, both nervous yet excited to start a new journey together as husband and wife. They are happy together for many years, raising children and falling into a comfortable pattern. This all changes when Matt Nightingale reveals one night to Luanne that he has been gay the entire time; he tells her that he was never attracted to her and never will be but he was so afraid and tried to suppress his sexuality. This is when the format of their TED talk is especially heartbreaking. Luanne and Matt both express their struggles and how to move forward after revealing their secrets. The couple decides to continue their marriage for the sake of their children and live for another decade together. In February 2016, Luanne and Matt finally file for a divorce but still consider each other close companions and friends. The TED talk was very powerful and made me quite sad, hearing both sides struggle to hold on and live a “normal” life. I would watch this TED talk over and over again if I could.
TED Talk #8: My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor
Jill Bolte Taylor is a brain scientist who personally experienced a stroke. Because of her occupation, Taylor thinks rather differently than the average person when discovering she has a brain hemorrhage. At the same time, I was completely awestruck as she described, in extreme detail, her feelings and memories of the experience. Jill would temporarily forget everything: how to read, talk, understand other people. She describes it as “la-la land”, which occurs at the most inconvenient times as she is urgently trying to telephone for help. Jill would forget what numbers she has already dialed, and when she succeeded, she realized that she could not understand what her colleague was saying. Luckily, her colleague understood she was in trouble and Jill was brought to the hospital in time. This TED talk was just incredulous; I can not even begin to imagine what she went through, losing focus and identity. Taylor also mentions the separation of the right and left brain, bringing out an actual brain as a prop during her talk, explaining how each side can define who you are as a person. She believes that if we spend more time with our right hemispheres, we will be at more peace with ourselves and the world around us. This TED talk was inspiring and I hope others will watch as well!
Ted talk #1: What a driverless world could look like by WNis Kabbaj
ReplyDeleteKabbaj opened up his Ted talk by talking about the common commute and how much time is spent driving in a car each day. He then began talking about biotechnology and how the solutions to traffic is like inside the human body. I first got confused by this statement then I realized that it was a metaphor. He began to support his idea using the human body and the vascular system. After that he showed a Japanese prototype bus that is like a robot which tops traffic jams and fixes them. They he introduced the idea of flying busses. For the rest of the video he gave more examples of what causes traffic and all the downsides of driving. Again he related these things to the human body. Overall this video was strange and didn't give a strong conclusion. I wouldn't suggest this video due to the topic being boring and weak supporting statements.
Ted talk #2: How to raise successful kids by Julie Lythcott-Haims
I decided to watch this video because I was really interested on the different views of parenting and for my own sake of when I have to raise my own kids. Julie opened up her talk by talking about what most parents think is the right way to raise a child. Being very strict, making extremely high standards, putting pressure on them to be the best, and to run their life by “nagging” so that “they aren't screwing up”. She referred to this style of parenting by calling it “checklist parenting”. She explains how most parents don't ask kids how they are doing but how their grades are. She then mentions that by the end of high school due to this parenting they are mentally burned out with high rates of depression and anxiety. Something I found very interesting it that she mentions parents, parent this hard because they want to have something to brag about. Which I see if my life very much, parents pushing their kids to their very most and making them do things that they do not want to do, just so the parents can say their kids do that. She ends this Ted talk by coming to the conclusion a parent cannot just back off and let their child be free, but parent them to be a good person, before an amazing scholar. Of course being an amazing scholar is great, but being a happy, loving, stable, respectful, well mannered, intelligent person can be better. I recommend this video to all the “helicopter parents” out there.
Ted talk #3: Why you should talk to strangers by Kio Stark
ReplyDeleteI decided to watch this video because growing up I was always told not to talk to strangers, so seeing a topic that tells you should made me very interested. Stark opens up her Ted talk by giving examples of things one says to a stranger such as hello, have a good day, etc. She says these things have “social meaning” which means that the person who says these things is simply acknowledging that you are there. She then moves onto how she is obsessed with talking to stranger and learning new stories. She then changes the topic to how talking to strangers can make their day and it is healthy and good to be friendly. She then counteracts her argument by saying you don't know the person they are talking to, their background, and intentions. She then goes back to how talking to strangers is liberating. After that she explains how well strangers communicate and how all these studies can be so significant and how this special form of closeness is something we need. Later she explains how these interactions can create new opportunities. Overall, this video was pretty boring and was not what I wished it was.
Ted talk #4 Meet global corruption's hidden players by Charmian Gooch
I decided to watch this video simply because of the topic. Global corruption and everything that falls beneath it is something I am very interested in. Charmian opens up her Ted talk listing a few examples of what the basic human being believes corruption is, such as a minister or despot of a small overseas nation or living in fabulous luxury. She explains that these people cannot operate without support from the rest of the world. She then gets into the idea that many corrupt leaders make their profits through anonymous shell complained, which they secretly own. She explains that they are commonly used around the world to avoid paying taxes, but can also be used to steal massive amounts of money from poor countries. As an example she uses the recently involved democratic republic of Congo selling off state owned mining assets to a shell company, which quickly on sold them for massive profits. Lasty she explains that there's a view that corruption just happens, and it's impossible to change. She concludes her talk by saying “in a globalist world, corruption is a global business that needs solutions right here”. I suggest this Ted talk, it was extremely interesting.
Ted talk #5: How to make choosing easier by Sheena Iyengar
ReplyDeleteI chose to watch this Ted talk because I often have a hard time making decisions like most other human beings and was hoping to find a few skills to help me. lyengar opens up her Ted talk with a little background information on herself and then straight to statistics. She concludes that an average American reports that they make up to 70 decisions a day. A study was done by following CEOs around, and found they completed 139 tasks, and 50% of their decisions were made in 9 minutes or less. Only 9% of decisions took longer than an hour. She then gets into a topic about choice overload and says that there are 3 main consequences of offering people too many choices. Engagement- they tend to procrastinate. Quality- make worse choices.
Satisfaction- they are less happy with their choice, even if their decision is objectively better. Sheena then suggests that there are 4 techniques in your business to prevent choice overload in customers. One being cut- reduce the redundant options. Two being concretisation- relate a decision in terms that mean something. Three is condition for complexity- gradually increase complexity. Overall I found this video very interesting and helpful!
Ted talk #6: The game that can give you 10 extra years of life by Jane McGonical
ReplyDeleteI chose this video again because of the title. It seemed very usual and a scam, therefore, I decided to give it a watch. Jane is a game developer and commonly hears it said that games are a waste of your life, and you’ll regret playing them when you die. She reviewed studies on the regrets of dying people heard by hospice workers and they tended to be the following.
I wish I hadn’t worked so hard
I wish I’d spent more time with friends
I wish I’d let myself be happier
I wish I’d had the courage to express my true self
I wish I’d lived a life true to my dreams instead of what others expected of me
Jane states that games can help with all of these, by playing with others you can be with friends, and virtual avatars allow people to imagine themselves as a more idealized ‘true’ version of themselves. Also, none of the comments were that people wish they’d played fewer games.
Jane spent some time with brain damage after being knocked unconscious. This gave her suicidal thoughts – since she couldn’t do anything and convinced herself there was very little reason to live. She developed a mental Role Playing Game to stave off suicidal thoughts – recruiting her family as allies to battle the bad guys (triggers to stress that caused her pain), and complete simple quests that let her be productive in small ways- cuddling her dog or walking around. By focussing on her alter ego and completing the basic powerups she quickly felt better mentally. She released the rules for the game online as “Super Better”, and many terminal patients responded saying it made them a lot happier and focussed.
She then explains that people who survive traumatic or near-death experiences often go through post traumatic growth: they clarify their goals, become happier and more productive. They quickly develop traits counter to the regrets of the dying – they live a life without regret. Jane was looking at these benefits, and how people can gain them without going through trauma in the first place. They are related to 4 types of resilience, which can be trained by 4 quests from Super Better.
Physical resilience: eg walk 3 steps or put your arms up: physical activity lets the body heal better and withstand more stress.
Mental resilience: by snapping fingers 50 times or counting backwards from 100. Mental activity gives you more willpower.
Emotional resilience: look through a window or google image search on your favourite baby animals. You can dramatically improve your health by feeling 3 positive emotions for every negative one.
Social Resilience: shake someone’s hand or send a message to a friend. This gives you more strength from others.
In conclusion, Jane explains that people who regularly boost these resiliency gain 10 more years of life, and should build the mindset to live that life without regrets. “10 years may finally give you the chance to play some games too!” Overall I did not agree with this ted talk and thought it wasn't very intelligent, but I would not know because I am not a gamer.
Ted talk #7 How to start a movement by David Sivers
ReplyDeleteI clicked on this ted talk, because you never know when you are going to need to start a movement, so why not learn! Derek Sivers is best known for being the founder and former president of CD Baby, an online CD store for independent musicians.Derek shows a video of a crowd forming around a single shirtless dancer (the leader). He dances alone for a while, then someone else comes forward. They dance together for a while, and are embraced as equals. Then a couple more come over and start dancing, and soon a large crowd forms around them.
So what can we learn from this?
As a leader, you must encourage your first followers. Embrace them as equals and treat them well.
The first follower is the one who turns someone from a shirtless nut into a leader. The leader will get the credit, but the followers are brave for getting it started.
Once a group is formed, the rest will start flocking towards it. Suddenly it isn’t weird or risky – if they’re quick they can still be part of the ‘in’ crowd, rather than feeling left behind.
For this reason, an early follower is a special kind of leadership.
If you see a single person with a good idea, be that first follower.
This video was pretty funny and relaid some interesting messages, If you are looking for an easier ted talk to watch and want some humor, this one is for you!
Ted talk #8 How to upgrade democracy for the internet era by Pia Mancini
ReplyDeleteI decided to watch this video do to the current election and the idea that our house is now republican.
Using software to inspire public debate and enable voter engagement, Pia Mancini hopes to upgrade modern democracy in Argentina and beyond. Democracy as a system is rooted in thinking and constraints from 500 years ago. Every few years it represents a few to make decisions on behalf of everyone else. It has high thresholds of entry: you need either a lot of resources or to devote your life to politics. The language is also complicated, so we can choose the authorities but are left out of how the decisions are made. The political system is 200 years old, and expects us to be passive recipients of the monologue. This attitude itself alienates citizens – giving them no opportunities to intervene except by protest’. People want their seat at the table.
The current generation has been good at using technology to organise protests, that have overthrown totalitarian governments and changed unpopular laws. However we have not yet used the technology to change the system itself. If the internet is the new printing press, then what is democracy for the internet era? Pia asks what institutions we need to build for the 21st century, and doesn’t know the answer.
Pia and some friends in Argentina were left thinking about how we can use technology to solve current political problems, rather than relying on the tools of the past. She developed an open source app ‘DemocracyOS’, which translates issues into easy-to-understand language and allows people to informally vote on them. They could compare citizen’s votes with the votes of their representatives to see the discrepancies. When she tried to get politicians on board with the idea of a 2 way conversation with voters, she failed. Reflecting, she says she was naive to expect the political elite to go along with this – the problems are cultural and not purely technical.
Pia took a leap of faith and ran a political party in Buenos Aires, with the idea that they would always vote along the same lines as the voters from DemocracyOS. To change the system, they needed a seat at the table, which meant playing by the political rules. While they did not win a seat, they did pick up 1.2% of the vote and have used their influence to have 3 bills to be voted on by DemocracyOS. Congress would not be bound by the vote, but they are at least showing willingness to consider the results.
Overall I really enjoyed this video, and learned numerous things from it. It was worth the watch.
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ReplyDeleteVictoria Martinez
ReplyDeleteNovember 26, 2016
Van Tuyl
TOK/Per. 2
Ted Talk#1:Lakshmi Pratury: The Lost Art of Letter-Writing
She first started about saying that she wanted to talk about death and that was a popular thing, which is a weird thing to say it like that. Then she tried to fix her wording saying she wanted to talk about the legacy people leave behind, which is better! Lakshmi talks about people who are dead and who are dying about how they left notes,letters, and videos chronicling their death, which she brings out a personal experience of her father. Her father died of a sickness and left her a notebook of thoughts of her. After his passing she came to a sudden realization that no one writes anymore. Yes, there’s texting and typing, but why give up writing? When Lakshmi talks about her regret of email exchanges and phone calls for a hug and chat she has those letters to read. Those letters were touched and written by her father and in exchange her hands are holding it. In some ways she’s holding his hand. There’s a value of legacy with personal touch. To close her ted talk she recites a journal entry (which she’ll publish a book of her father’s and hers thoughts to her son) about her father’s cremation. The legacy she leaves for her son will grow stronger as it passes on for generations to come, hopefully.
Victoria Martinez
ReplyDeleteNovember 26, 2016
Van Tuyl
TOK/Per. 2
Ted Talk#2:Ahn Trio: A Modern Take on Piano, Violin, Cello
Well, in the little video summary they are apparently are sisters and a Skylife cover by David Balakrishnan and then played Oblivion cover by Astor Piazzolla. Incredible!! These three really bring their music to life, breathe a beating heart into it! It's gorgeous sounds. The Piazzolla piece was perfection. It made my heart writhe in yearning. A beautiful, extremely well-played and heartfelt performance. The beginning between the players was spot on. They all seemed to be communicated while they play. I really like how they did a modern pop-style-like section that was mixed with the first piece.I think that sometimes that when modern styles of music get a “remix” to them they loose a bit of their soul and meaning - but I thought this was a great example of how to mash up styles and maintain an area which still held onto the original piece but modernized. Well done, standing ovation from me! In order to enjoy this kind of music you need to be open to new ways (remixing) of playing traditional instruments and try to suspend your musical preferences. They try to hit a middle ground to the classicals and a modern sound, but it can be swayed by your music preference.
1.Adam Savage: My love letter to cosplay
ReplyDeleteChildhood costumes were Adam's favorite hobby and now he is an avid cosplayer. I think cosplay is looked down upon in our society but it confuses me as to why. Just like Adam when we were growing up we watched movies and tv shows. When we watch these characters we resonate with them and and even wish we could be them. So why is actually expressing this as an adult any less different than what we did during our childhoods or for Halloween?
2. Kelli Jean Drinkwater: Enough with the fear of fat
Kelli began her ted talk admitting that yes, she was fat but also a confident women and activist. She began to voice what some people in the audience must be thinking, she must be funny because she was obese or have diabetes. This type of thinking is called fatphobia and can not only be directed at individuals but ourselves. Fatphobia is similar to systematic oppression like capitalism and racism which are hard to challenge. However Kelli has challenged the fear of fat by reclaiming public spaces were fat people are shamed from attending such as night clubs and swimming pools. This ted talk was not incredibly eye opening but can be appreciated as she is unapologetically herself, despite the way society views her.
3. Christopher Soghoian:Your smartphone is a civil rights issue
In 2016 the legal battle between Apple and the Federal Bureau of Investigation was circulating the world. Apple fought to protect the right to encrypt IOS data on Iphones in order to protect the rights and privacy of its owner. The two leaders in the smartphone industry are Apple and Android. Iphones are a luxury that isn't affordable to the lower class whereas Android caters to this majority of people who cannot afford a $600 phone. However androids are not encrypted and protected because buyers can't pay of this luxury as Iphone users can. This becomes a civil rights issue because the upper middle and upper class has privacy whereas the lower class doesn't, which is both unfair and unconstitutional.
4. Rainn Wilson: Ideas worth dating
I clicked on this Ted talk because the speakers was Rainn Wilson and he is one of my favorite actors. In his Ted talk Wilson goes on several dates but not with people but with these people's ideas. He began dating around and listening to other people's ideas through speed dating. Some of the ideas Wilson encountered were funny or even ridiculous, where others were deep and eye opening. This Ted talk was both funny and interactive and showed the circulation of ideas in a creative metaphor.
5. Kees Moeliker: How a dead duck changed my life
ReplyDeleteOrnithologist Kees Moeliker worked was a curator at the natural history museum in Rotterdam, which meant he collected dead animals. In 1995 a new wing was added to the museum, made entirely of glass. Kees would sit in his office and hear birds hitting the glass only to die shortly after. One afternoon, a duck hit the glass and when Kees went out to collect it another male duck started to copulate over the dead duck. Analyzing strange animal behavior then became Kees profession and by the duck death he was able to understand that ducks don't actually damage their brains when they hit the glass and even try to stop themselves. This ted talk was extremely humorous but also disproved the idea that birds don't see the glass at all before they hit it.
6. James Veitch: This is what happens when you reply to spam email.
James Veitch shares his hilarious story of replying to spam email, but reveals the dangers of internet access. Once and awhile spam email manages to get through our spam filter so we delete it. However our email address is constantly being shared and passed around by companies and may get into the hands of scammers. In response Veitch began replying to spam emails and highly recommends, with a fake email, we reply to ours as well. With the use of humor, Veitch was able to show an outlet to frustrated email users how to deal with scammers and the world of the internet.
7. Tom Hulme: What can we learn from shortcuts?
Tom Hulme answers the question of how you build a product people really want to buy. The answer is simple: allow consumers to be a part of the process. When creating a product, empathy for what your customers want is probably the biggest leading indicator of a business success. However in designs people always end up creating different paths and functions that the designer did not expect. Desire paths are were design and a human's needs diverge and develop out of necessity. The way to solve this problem and make designs more efficient is to work with consumers to create the best most efficient product.
8. Allison Killing: What happens when a city runs out of room for its dead?
Allison Killing looks at how cities and towns approach death and the dying, in terms of burial plots. Although we may not think about death and burial there all around us and important parts of our cities. However in major cities, burial space is becoming scarce. Most cemeteries are run by private business such as churches and other religious associations, but you can legally bury a dead relative in your backyard with proper guidance. This ted talk was humorous and well as insightful, and answered questions that most people never really think about.
#3 "Inside the mind of a procrastinator" by Tim Urban
ReplyDeleteThis Ted Talk addresses the challenges but also the advantages for one who procrastinates. The speaker himself completely procrastinated on his senior thesis paper and the school let him know it was the best one they have ever received. Urban explains the presence of panic when there are deadlines compared to when there are not. He believes that everyone procrastinates at something even though sometimes it might not be as visible compared to other situations. I enjoyed this ted talk because it analyzed an issue that all students experience during their education. The speaker includes is humorous and personable. He explains his ideas through diagrams and cartoons which make it easy to follow and enjoyable.
#4 "A broken body isn't a broken person" by Janine Shepherd
In this Ted Talk Janine Shepherd describes the tragic moment in her life when she was hit by a work truck 10 minutes away from the finish line of a competitive run. She broke her neck, back, ribs, and her head was cut open. Doctors at the hospital had to cut half of her body to realign her spine and ribs. She was paralyzed from the waist down and placed in a spinal ward. Here she created a family with those around her with the same challenges. Even though they did not physically see each other they were able to make friendships without judgement with people who were on the same journey. However, when Janine got home she became depressed because her Olympic running dream was gone. She soon found interest in learning how to fly. In under 18 months she was able to receive her private pilot license, twin engine rating, instrument rating, commercial license, and eventually began teaching others. I found this ted talk very interesting and inspirational because I think this is a scenario that is common in pro athletes. When one is tragically injured they go into a state of denial and depression. She preaches that even though your body might be broken your spirit is unstoppable.
#1. “What will humans look like in 100 years?” by Juan Enriquez
ReplyDeleteIt’s interesting to imagine this idea especially with all the progress humans have made in genetics, and prosthetics. From a simple metal prosthetic to a prosthetic aimed to have a working nervous system enabling one to feel again is not short of amazing. With us constantly making advancement in human limbs, and artificial organs, the goal is even as far as to alter one's cells in order to do a number of things that a normal human cell is not capable of doing such as resisting radiation at a higher scale. These ideas almost feel like something out of a sci-fi movie or game. Games that come to mind in genetically altering one's body are like the Hitman games, and Deus-Ex is like the idea of advanced prosthetics. Considering that the Deus-Ex character is basically a cyborg, that is the idea I get from watching Juan Enriquez’s discussion on the future of humans as a species in this Universe. What also came to my mind was the news of a planned head transplant procedure for a disabled volunteer in Russia, this only made the talk in the video more fascinating, but almost scary at the same time.
#2. “How the news distorts our worldview” by Alisa Miller
Considering that plenty of people do not read the newspaper anymore, and instead focus their attention to reading 3 second headlines on yahoo news. They mostly read only the headlines for these articles, but they never get into reading the actual article itself. With this lack of interest in the news in the own U.S. and abroad, is a real issue on the way Americans perceive the world around them. In all U.S. networks of 2007, around 70% of the news was based on events in the U.S. while the other 30% was about the world, particularly Asia and Europe. The year in which France released its studies on how humans are contributing to the problem of global warming, the death of Anna Nicole Smith was covered more than a global problem in which the world is facing. I am not trying to say that her death should not be covered, but I think that the fate and future of 7.2 billion humans is a bit more important than the death of a supermodel. So yes the new’s coverage of the world around us is not as good as it is right now, and I believe that it could do better. But the fault also falls on us as a society for not staying informed about the world around us. So this problem of distortion in the media works both ways, the media’s lack of important global issues, and the consumers uninterest in them as well.
#3. “We need Nuclear Power to solve climate change” by Joe Lassiter
Carbon in the Earth’s atmosphere has been on the rise for the last century, and is predicted to only keep rising in the next 40 years. The biggest countries that emit CO2 are the U.S., China, Japan, and India. The rest of the continent of Europe is also in this list of CO2 emitters, but China is the worst country when it comes to this issue of air pollution. China’s main source of power is through coal, and same goes for the country of India which follows this trend as well. The two main alternatives for this problem are the switch to nuclear energy, but one problem is the expenses, and the test/regulations it must pass before it can go into effect in other countries. The problem isn’t that the countries will not accept this form of energy, it is just that as of now the alternative to nuclear energy is hard to integrate into society today. The idea of China switching from coal to nuclear energy is also not convenient to the population in China. Before China fully industrialized, 80% of the people lived in extreme poverty, and in the last 20 years that number has dropped from 80 to only 20%. The air pollution in China is also an issue to the society’s health, and it is predicted that by the year 2040, about 200 million citizens will die of carbon monoxide poisoning in their own homes which is a problem prevalent in today’s China.
ReplyDelete#4. “This is what it’s like to go undercover in North Korea” by Suki Kim
Being the only current country today that is under an iron fist, North Korea is the only exception in the world to many different world phenomenons. The world wide web is not so world wide considering that the people in North Korea do not have Internet access, or do not even not what the internet is considering that they do not know who people like Steve Jobs or Bill Gates are. Everything in the country itself is based on lies surrounding the government and leaders in the country. From offensive propaganda from the government, to a harsh restriction on ideas and thoughts of the society. Everything written, said, or thought of has to based on the leader, and the speaker Suki Kim having been an English teacher at an Evangelical school saw the dissatisfaction of students in having to base all of their work on this mindset.
#5. “We train soldiers for war, let’s train them to come home” by Hector Garcia
PTSD has been a prevalent problem in war veterans, and did not fully come to the attention of the public until the war in Vietnam. The problem with PTSD is not that the combat veterans brain is completely fried, and will not work again, but instead needs training in order to fit back in society. This training/therapy follows many of the strict discipline ideas of the Marine Corps, and Army. The speaker described the feeling when a PTSD veteran is casually watching T.V. and if a gunshot then comes on or anything to remind them of a past experience , is a “mindfuck”. The most effective way as of now to train veterans to accommodate to normal civilian life is to do a training exercise known as the exposure test. This places the subject in a various social areas such as a mall, grocery market, cafe, etc. It is seen as the most effective way to help mentally unstable veterans to ease their worries about other around them. The memories at war are never forgotten, but the purpose of this aid is to make the memory not as raw in one’s mind, and to help the veteran adjust back into day to day life in the States.
#6. “How games makes kids smarter” by Gabe Zichermann
With the Atari 2600 coming out in 1977 is considered to many the first step towards this world based on games. The idea of gamification is how everything in the media, and industry such as nike, and chase are changing the way they appel the the public in order to fit the same idea that games do; short and sweet. Games are seen by some to be nothing more than a waste of time, and to cause violent behavior in players depending on the game. Games have show to as well increase our ability to multitask, and what is interesting is that average IQ in the U.S. has gone up about .3, every year since the 90’s. This is als when video games began to become a more prevalent phenomenon in society. Even though at times it feels like if the world is getting dumber though.
#7. “Why light needs darkness” by Rogier van der Heide
ReplyDeleteThe idea that opposites need each other is in plenty of examples in the world. The idea is seen in the Yin Yang, light and darkness, and good and bad. All of these go on the principle that they both need each other, and cannot exist without each other, although they may be total opposites. Speaker Rogier van der Heide explains this in depth and how is darkness really the opposite of light, or is it just the absence of light. Is evil truly the opposite of good, or is it just an absence of good. The speaker focuses main on the idea of light, and how the with the proper technique, different forms of lighting represent different concepts. In an office building everything is uniformly lighted, and when comparing it to St. Peters Basilica in the Vatican City, the Basilica has some parts lit and others not. What is interesting about this is that the areas that do have light, in particular the center of the Basilica, rays of light coming from the sun are that much more important, and eye catching because of the darkness that is present in other areas of the Basilica. Lighting not only is important for us to see when our eyes can not, but also the way we light up a certain area is also important.
#8. “How free is our freedom of the press” by Trevor Timm
Although America is considered a free country by standards, our freedom of the press is constantly being messed with by the government; more than we may think it has. With whistleblowers such as Edward Snowden, John Kiriakou, Jeffrey Sterling, and more exposing the government of wrong doings. This issue is primarily focused on the NSA and surveillance in today’s America. Do the government organizations such as the NSA and CIA really limit the things we can say and write about them that show the negatives to these security organizations. A place where the speaker gave in which allows free opinion and ideas is the website called secure drop. This allows for the average person to express their concerns for anything or anyone openly, and freely. The encryption prevents the government from tracing this thus they can not find the source of the article on their. It really is interesting to see that in the country that promotes freedom and free speech, really is not as free as we may imagine it to be.
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ReplyDelete#1-Jia Jiang:What I learned from 100 days of rejection
ReplyDeleteIn this TED talk Jia talks about how he turned rejection into being able to get over the fear of being rejected. Rejection in society is very big and id very common. I have friends who won't apply to a college because the "know" they will be rejected and I ask then how they know if they don't apply and they say "nah, I don have enough community service and I don't qualify." But I tell them that they can explain to the college that they don't have community service hours maybe because they work or they have a sport or just simply explain that they don't have enough hours in a day to help but that they can if they get accepted. People are acred to ask because they predict they will get rejected. This happens in school everyday, students don't ask questions in class because they think the teacher will think it's a stupid question or something and they get used to not asking questions and it turns into a bad habit and even when they really need to ask they wont because they don't have the courage. I like this TED talk and love the message it sends.
#1 Dan Ariely: How equal do we want the world to be? You'd be surprised.
ReplyDeleteAriely discussed what we actually have in America in terms of wealth inequality vs. what we think we have. The reality of the wealth gaps in our country are astonishingly more severe than people thought on average. Therefore, less people feel more compelled to take action, because what they think reality is is not actually realistic at all. He also compares this idea to blind taste testing, etc. I thought this talk was interesting - the actual wealth gaps we have amazed me, as they are so incredibly large! But, he did not connect many of his ideas as smoothly as he could have, so this talk took a little more interpretation than most. Overall, this talk was alright.
#2 Christopher Soghoian: Your smartphone is a civil rights issue.
I thought this talk was interesting. Soghoian stated that iPhones and Androids are the biggest smartphone companies on the market. However, Apple encrypts all data, which protects its users from people spying on them, i.e. the government. Android does not do anything to encrypt data for users, therefore leaving them unprotected. Soghoian argues that because Android phones are cheaper than iPhones, the poor and already vulnerable are exposed and taken advantage of by the government, whilst the more wealthy population’s information is stored securely. Therefore, money buys privacy rights. I agree that this is unjust, as richer people should not have more security simply because of their financial status. But, lately, iPhones have become more attainable (such as lower/older models only costing $50), which may help in partially solving this issue.
#3 Ivan Krastev: Can democracy exist without trust?
Krastev discussed the problem that we have with democracy these days, while also questioning if democracy truly is the “most just” form of government. He claimed that a lot of problems within an efficient form of democracy stem from social issues that are both positive and negative, for instance, the internet. The internet is overall a positive thing, as it has allowed billions of people to connect and communicate. However, with this connection, comes questioning and many times, misunderstanding. Krastev also talked about an extremely relevant issue today, which is the turning in of blank ballots and not voting, even though people are registered as voters. He described this issue as a problem directly with democracy and the fact that people do not think the people on the ballot properly represent the public. Krastev was not the most engaging speaker, but the points he made were well thought out are still very relevant currently.
#4 Harald Haas: Forget Wi-Fi. Meet the new Li-Fi Internet.
This talk had an interesting concept, but I did not think Haas provided enough pretence. Haas described a new form of Wi-Fi, called Li-Fi, that works through the reception of varied light through solar cells in order to provide both energy and Wi-Fi to a device. Therefore, that device would be provided with energy to charge and Wi-Fi at the same time. He demonstrated his product, which was intriguing. But, I could not help but wonder how exactly it worked and how/if these solar cells worked differently than others. Overall, the talk was entertaining, but it did not feel long enough or well explained.
#5 Arthur Benjamin: Teach statistics before calculus!
ReplyDeleteThis talk seemed a little misleading to me. In my opinion, from the title, it seemed like it would talk about how statistics benefits calculus students later. However, this talk mainly talked about the importance of statistics and how the study of statistics is superior to calculus. Benjamin did make a very valid argument: high school students have much more application for statistics than calculus in their daily lives. This is definitely true, when you consider statistics’ studies of probability, taking chances, etc. The fact that Benjamin emphasized taking statistics over calculus was interesting to me, given the fact that I chose calculus, despite being a bio student. Having chosen this path for myself, I definitely believe statistics would have benefitted me more than calculus has.
#6 Simon Sinek: Why good leaders make you feel safe.
I really enjoyed this talk. Sinek discussed how truly good leaders, or leaders that make their communities feel safe and are successful, are those who would/do sacrifice anything for the good of their people. When this sacrifice is made to help everyone, it is the natural response to do the same for that leader - for example, help them on a project, take care of them too, etc. When employees or other people feel like their leaders would not sacrifice anything for them, they become stressed and non-trusting, as they can’t even trust the people who are supposed to be on their ‘team’. I thought that this talk seemed incredibly true and helpful in terms of work environments. This talk was scary to think about in a political sense, but made sense there too.
#7 Celeste Headlee: 10 ways to have a better conversation.
This talk was interesting. Headlee started off her talk by stating that multiple studies claim that right now in American history, we are the most divided we have ever been as a nation. This is a result of everything happening in our nation at the moment and the increase of technology use at the same time. People are becoming more and more disconnected and close minded. Headlee gave advice as to how to have better conversations and connect with people, by doing things such as really listening and always coming into a conversation with an open mind. She also emphasized to stop trying to parallel your experiences to others, as it always becomes a sort of pity competition. I definitely agreed with Headlee and found her entertaining. I think her talk would have been more effective if she talked about why we need to reconnect.
#8 AJ Jacobs: How healthy living nearly killed me.
Although this talk was much more light hearted than the title implies, Jacobs does have good point, which is that doing too many healthy things or trying to be overly healthy actually does have negative effects. These effects can be negative effects on health or unhealthy social skills, which lead to poor mental health. Jacobs also shortly discussed the issue of noise pollution and the true value of silence. Honestly, I felt that this talk was a little too comedic and fell more into Jacobs simply advertising himself/his book through comedy than having actual useful content.
#1:Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi: An interview with the founders of Black Lives Matter
ReplyDeleteThis Ted Talk was an interesting one. It was an interview between the the founding members of the controversial group “Black Lives Matter”. While I have my opinions, as a white male I’m walking on a mine field so I will refrain. However, I emphatically agree with what they had to say about leadership and how people shout treat it. People should not try to build up leaders as some sort of superhero, but as normal people accomplishing extraordinary things. This kind of god image scares people from trying to step up and change the world around them. They are 100% correct in that every great person who has gone down in history started from nothingness and uncertainty, and by sticking with hard work, have accomplished what they want. Another point that I thought was good was that you should be the change you want to see in the world. One should not sit at home and tell other people what they should believe, but go out and lead through example.
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Delete#3:Kelli Jean Drinkwater: Enough with the fear of fat
DeleteThis talk was very, very, very dumb. I like Ted Talks and I don't mind all the progressive speakers who discuss their ideas. But this was just unconvincing.
The speaker discusses society's fear of fat people and those who are overweight. To her, obesity is completely natural and is not just normal, but gorgeous. (People can find whatever they want to be attractive, but it's just not normal to find the condition of obesity sexy). She says fatophobia is a product of capitalism, patriarchy, and racism. Yeah....ok. (She never actually provides proof for any of these). Finally she puts the emphasis of mental health over "outdated BMI charts". She is committing a fallacy by setting up a false dilemma between only supporting mental or physical health. Why not both? We should teach people not to be rude to overweight people, and that they should not be ashamed of themselves, just for being overweight. But we should also try to help them by helping them become healthy.
#4:Ian Bremmer: How the US should use its superpower status
DeleteThis interesting chat was about the global role the US should take in the world. Americans are finding it harder and harder for them to enforce their will on other countries on Earth. Not whether is possible to, but if it is right. He discusses the scenarios of what would likely happen on each continent if the US relaxed its grip. In Asia, things are relatively stable with legitimate, powerful governments. While they do want to become more powerful, their ultimate goal is economic stability. In Europe, the core European states would survive quite well. Their integrated and industrialized economies would not only let them function but prosper. Not much can be said for the countries on the fringe of the continent. Africa is expected to do well in some places with more industrialization and modernization, while others may fall off the map due to tyrannical governments, terrorism, and climate issues. Latin America is slowly but surely heading towards free-er markets with more rights for its citizens, which is positive. Then there is the US. While we have our problems, it is safe to say we are better off than many other countries. This will motivate other places to mimic us and do what we do, without us have to influence them. This is how the US will lead.
#2:Tiq Milan and Kim Katrin Milan: A queer vision of love and marriage
DeleteThis talk is by a couple consisting of a transgender man and a bisexual woman. They want people to drop the biases that they have regarding gender, tradition, race, and sexuality. Then, they have a path to self-determination that lets them be who they truly are and to make them happy. To them, love is fluid and flexible and can not be applied just to one thing. Overall, I agree with them that you have the right to be who you are as long as you don't hurt other people. After all, we all have so little time, that we should try to be as happy as possible. There's not really much for me to disagree here, I thought it was a pretty good chat. I liked the way they spoke and how they were not afraid to discuss some very intimate details. Anyway, a very inspiring story that shows how love can come in different forms.
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Delete#5:Ethan Nadelmann: Why we need to end the War on Drugs
DeleteThe points that Mr.Nadelmann brought up were interesting and eye opening to me. He has interviewed hundreds of DEA agents all over the world and asked them about their view on the drug war. He would always receive the same answer. In Latin America, he would hear "You can't stop the supply, you need to deal with the demand in America" while in the US, he hears "You can't get rid of the demand, but you can the supply". This demonstrates a lack of understanding between different governments and how little the picture they truly see. Another point mentioned was the hypocrisy of illegal cannabis coupled with completely allowed alcohol. Finally he brought up the racist origins of these laws. Opium was banned during mass Chinese immigration while marijuana was banned during Mexican immigration. Viewing these drugs through racist lens as "mongrel substances" motivated the government to pass the laws that they made. This really has challenged my beliefs on the drug war and the laws we have on the books.
#6:Manwar Ali: Inside the mind of a former radical jihadist
DeleteThis chat was created by a former radical jihadist named Manwar Ali. He has fought in multiple conflicts in places like Burma, Afghanistan, and Indonesia. Originally, his intentions was that of peaceful activism. However, during his university years, he underwent Islamic Radicalization. He believed he was fighting for the oppressed, but violence and misery started to make him question. After educating himself, he found the truth about jihad. Meaning a struggle with God, Jihad can encompass many things, from abstinence to piety. Violence is tolerated under strict circumstances. Thus he left his old world behind him and became and activist for peace. To him, the greatest weapon is knowledge. Not just against oppression, but also Islamic extremism. While some parts of Islam are very violent, I agree with the man on how powerful knowledge can be to a person. It can help make a man better and stronger for himself and his community.
#7:Benedetta Berti: The surprising way groups like ISIS stay in power
DeleteI found this TED talk interesting because it provided new points that I have never really considered when discussing radical Islamic terrorism. Usually we hear the hashed out phrases "EVERY MUSLIM IS EVIL" and "IT'S ALL THE US'S FAULT", black and white sayings that don't take into account the grey zones. The speaker discusses different terrorist groups, and some of the things they do outside of fighting. They provide social services for their communities and the citizens of the country they are in. Without a strong government to provide basic needs and services for its citizen, terrorist groups can come in and exploit these gaps. Seen as the only group with authority in a particular region can help bolster recruitment and funding for the terror group. After thinking about it long and hard, I agree with the speaker and her points because if I was in similar situations, I would probably see different groups in different lights.
#8:
DeleteJames Veitch: This is what happens when you reply to spam email
This was one of the funnier TED talks that I have seen for a longtime. The story involves a man who received a spam email from a rather shady source that somehow bypassed his spam blocker. Instead of ignoring it, he replied back. Thus begins a tale of trickery and jokes, while leading the spammer on. He kept playing tricks on him until he started speaking in code, saying the most ridiculous sentences you could ever imagine! To him, he was doing the public a service free of charge. The time the spammer sent trying to lead him on was time taken away from him trying to con naive adults out of their hard earned money. So next time you see a spam email, think about the greater good, and reply back. After all, whether it be a Russian transnational gold shipping company or Nelson Mandela's widow, an interesting conversation lays ahead.
TED Talk #2: Strange answers to the psychopath test by Jon Ronson
ReplyDeleteThis talk starts with an anecdote about Jon Ronson investigating psychiatry from the perspective of a person that doesn't believe in it, prompted by a self-diagnosis of 12 mental disorders based on the psychiatry manual. His search led him to a Scientologist, who in turn led him to a man who had been in a mental facility for 12 years after faking madness in prison. Despite faking many of his symptoms, it was determined that the man, named Tony, was actually a psychopath. In this talk, Ronson primarily explores the perception of normality compared to the psychopath checklist. Through his interactions with Tony, he discovered that many of the traits that we look for in normal people are often markers of psychopathy. I found this to be simultaneously comforting and disturbing. On one hand, psychopaths in my vicinity can pass for normal people and thereby be seemingly innocuous until they display violent tendencies, but on the other hand if their behavior is similar to that of non-psychopaths then they can't really be that dangerous. This is also somewhat the conclusion that Ronson came to, in that psychopathy exists on a spectrum, and some that display psychopathic characteristics are not necessarily dangerous.
I found his presentation very appealing. In addition to the spoken portion, there was a constant line art animation playing in the background with accompanying music to illustrate the story. The speaker himself did quite well, with his somewhat quirky demeanor fitting well to the subject. Overall, this was a very enjoyable TED Talk, in both content and presentation.
#2 Kelli Jean Drinkwater: Enough with the fear of fat
ReplyDeleteIn this ted talk Kelli demonstrates what people think of fat and how scared society is of being fat. I like how she is so confident to show the flesh that many are shamed and told not to show. Its scary how we as a society think that there is a wrong type of body type and that if we don't have the ideal body then we should be shamed but if we have it we should judge who don't. She tries to portray to everyone that not everyone is ashamed of being obese and that they have learned to adapt to their bodies and be comfortable in their own skin. I like this ted talk because it starts to break the stereo types that we have and start to embrace who we truly are.
#3 Danielle Feinberg: The magic ingredient that brings Pixar movies to life
This ted talk is a little boring but interesting at the same time. in this ted talk Danielle talks about how the magic of math and core and science and physics we are able to make a virtual world were we create the unimaginable. Se talks about how her dreams of being an artist were crushed when she was 7 years old but she came across it again in the future and uses it former satisfaction and to be able to made a virtual world ere wells ourselves in.
#4 Tiq Milan and Kim Katrin Milan: A queer vision of love and marriage
in this ted talk here is a couple. The man is transgender and the woman is considered to be lesbian but straight. The way they presented and the way they looked at each other really showed the love they have for each other. Its that type of things that we have to look at and let people love who ever they want to love and not interfere because what if that was you in their shoes? The LGBTQ community is very criticized a lot and thousands of them are killed because they are not loving who they are supposed to love and this is total bs because thats like telling a dog to not love unconditionally their owner because they aren't an animal. Love is a powerful emotion and there should be no boundaries to it.
#5 Andrew Solomon: How the worst moments in our lives make us who we are
Personally this ted talk is good but he guy sorta creeps me out he talksa lot about rap and interviews people who have been raped and asks questions that insure that he wouldn't be comfortable being asked. He makes a good point though. The toughest moments in our lives make up who we are because without making mistakes or going through tragic events in our lives we wouldn't grow as a person and there is no such thing as perfect. Perfect is just overrated and is not looked at the way we should see. Tragic things in our lies are terrible but those tragic things make us learn or open our eyes and make us see what we didn't see before. Andrew is a man that is gay and that is his tragic story because he has been judged to the max for it. aEverything is a lesson whether good or bad but the bad makes us grow to who we are or who we will be.
Ted talk # 1
ReplyDeleteDon't like click bait? Don't click.
By Sally Kohn
The presenter starts by addressing how dangerous and ruthless social media can be. She also mentions that social medias seemed to target and and produce more negative attacks towards people of color, Women, and those a part of the LGBTQ+ community. She makes the argument that every act we perform on social medias, whether it be Tumblr or Twitter becomes a public act in making media. I personally like this point that she makes because it is true. Especially those who have many followers on their social medias, they have the power to spread news that can be seen by many. We decide what the news is based on, the more topics people tend to click on and re blog the bigger the news of this topic will get. We create our own news outlets based on who we follow, what we like and what we re blog. Through this act we have the power to filter our news and our point of views.
Ted Talk #2
ReplyDeleteHow the News Distorts Our Worldview
Alisa Miller
The topic of this ted talk was based around the news and how the news helps influence our opinion and view of the world around us. She talks about how the biggest news outlet is local tv news which does not even over 12% of international news. This keeps our view of other places around the world very narrow. She discusses how our news outlets will tend to focus on more arbitrary things, such as celebrity gossip. The news rather cover these celebrities because more people are bound to read it and also it is a lot cheaper to cover an article based on a celebrity. I liked her topic and the fact that she did use humor in order to relate to the audience more. She had very good points , however i noticed, and i noticed it because i do it all the time, that she kept looking down at her paper and reading right off of it as she presented. Besides this fact though it was a pretty good presentation short, and simple and to the point.
Ted Talk # #3
ReplyDeleteDon't Buy a Home. Build it!
By Mitchell Joachim
The idea behind this presentation seemed pretty interesting. It was discussing how trees and plant can be used and shaped, using geometry, in order to help build homes. Even though i did find this to be a cool topic the presenter himself made me not like it as much as i could have. He spoke very quickly jumbling his words together in a way that i could not really understand what he was trying to say. He also seemed very rushed in both his ideas and arguments, this made it hard for him to clearly and effectively get his point across. Another thing i did not like as the fact that he was a white man wearing dreads. I personally could not take anything of what he was saying seriously which sucks because he had a cool topic but just could not explain it well enough.
Ted Talk #4
ReplyDeleteA visual history of social
dance in 25 moves
By Camille A. Brown
This Ted Talk is about dance and it focused primarily on dances surrounding both African culture and African-American culture. Camille Brown does a great job of both explaining the history of the dance and providing the visuals for each specific dance she talked about. She discusses how dance is significant to cultures and helps tell a story of the past. Dance is meant to keep culture alive and in order to help people remember their roots and history. She also states that social dance is about community and if you know the steps you feel more apart of the community. She goes on to say that dance is used as a language especially for the African American community. this language traces all they way back to slavery in which many slaves could only communicates use beats and their body to speak without plantation owners knowing. Many of the moves used all the way back then can still be seen in dance crazes today. I personally found this presentation to be very informative and interesting. It helps learn about others cultures which i am very fond of.
Ted Talk Response #5
ReplyDelete"How students of color confront impostor syndrome" Dena Simmons
Dena grew up in the Bronx New York, in a one bedroom apartment with her two sisters and immigrant mother. She states how she loved her neighborhood but went to sleep to gunshots. Her mother moved the family to Connecticut so the girls could attend boarding school and safe. She addresses the question Why did I have to leave the Bronx to get a better education? and why did I have to erase what made me, me? What does this kind of idea teach a student of color. One study found out of 40000 childrens books only 3% were about African Americans. Schools illustrate the idea that African american students must leave their identities at home to be successful. I really enjoyed this ted talk because It was a perspective that I have not realized. The personal stories told by Dena shed light on the struggles African american students go through when having to adapt to a specific environment to feel like they belong. She continues to advocate for these students by teaching in the Bronx and makes sure the students feel like they belong just the way they are. The way they talk, their behaviors, and their backgrounds are accepted. The children are able to have faith in themselves and their future.
Ted Talk Response # 6
5 dangerous things you should let your kids do by Gever Tulley
Gever Tulley has created a program in which children get to create what comes to their mind. They have the opportunity to use power tools and the resources they need to create their invention. He points out the kind of extreme regulations that goes with labeling. The warning on coffee cups about the temperature, the suffocation warning on plastic, and how our culture believes anything sharper than a golf ball is too dangerous for kids. He shares the dangers of the increase in regulation. Even with our boundaries and limitations kids will still find a way to do the dangerous things they want. I found this ted talk very interesting because our culture and generation tends to focus so much on the negative outcomes of experiences more than the advantages. By experiencing certain situations, children learn new concepts and basic ideas about important resources like fire. I also think it was helpful that Gever explained the how children in other culture use tools when they are very young which makes them comfortable with the objects
Ted Talk Response #7
ReplyDeleteExtreme Wing suit Flying
Ueli Gegenschatz
Ueli has done many different types of jumping. He has done paragliding, skydiving, free flying, sky surfing, wing suit flying, and base jumping. He has jumped off the Matterhorn, Eiffel town, and many other extreme places. One time he slid off a hot air balloon to go sky surfing. He has to practice step by step and practice his skills and knowledge to be successful. The most important aspect of these types of extreme sports is the mental component. This ted talk was one of the most craziest presentations I have ever watched. Watching the video of his jumps and flights at the end was chilling and jaw dropping. Seeing him fall thousands of feet while surfing with his board was spectacular. I really enjoyed this ted talk because it gives an insight of the types of adrenaline rushes extreme sport participants experience.
Ted Talk #5
ReplyDeleteAnd now, the real news
By Kirk Citron
The presenter only really talked about how most of our headline news stories will not matter in 50 years, 25 years or even in a decade. He based his presentation around addressing current news article and asking if it would matter 10 years from now. This is all his presentation really consisted of. It was honestly quite boring or more he was boring to me in the way he spoke. This ted talk was not too informative it did however make you think about the importance we put on news article that honestly wont ever matter again.
Ted Talk #6
ReplyDeleteLove letters to strangers
By Hannah Brencher
I liked this Ted talk it seemed very sweet, you could tell just how passionate the presenter, Hannah Brencher was. She talked about her struggle with depression and how one of the only things that helped her get through were hand written letters by her mother. She put a special significance on the power of hand written letters, so much so that she decided that she would start writing a bunch of love letters and leave them on car windshields, cafes, bathrooms, anyplace in which strangers could find them. She also posted on her blog that she would write anyone who asked her a hand written love letter. She did this in order to help spread love, she argues that most people don't know how it is like and the feeling one gets to have love expressed for them through the written form. This was all a little too cheesy for me however I still believed it was nice presentation and she was doing completely selfless things for strangers which was sweet.
Ted Talk #7
ReplyDeleteHow students of color
confront impostor syndrome
By Dena Simmons
Dena Simmons starts her presentation giving a background of her life and where she came from. She came from the Bronx however due to high crime rates her mother with all her effort got to send her to boarding school. She surrounds her ted talk on the idea that student of color are pressured to leave behind their identity and their cultures in order to succeed in school. She gives the example from her on life in which a teacher would publicly embarrass her for not being able to pronounce certain words "correctly", (she had an accent from the Bronx and the teacher was apparently not down with that). Dena felt that her teacher deemed her unintelligent because she did not sound the same way as her. Dena later goes on to describe ho as a colored women it was hard for her to feel comfterable sharing her opinion. I personally love this point she makes, there is such a stigma that for women of color who chose to stand up for themselves. Black women will be called angry or told that they have an attitude problem, Latina and Hispanic women are often referred to as "spicy". Women of color are judged for expressing their opinions but white women are always "breaking glass ceiling" when they voice the slightest inequality or any sort of opinion. This can hinder colored female students education, for they hold their opinions back in fear of being labeled. People of color constantly feel that if the leave their culture behind to be deemed less ghetto and hopefully in extension feel less discrimination. In all i very much enjoyed her presentation and would recommend others to watch it!
Ted Talk #8
ReplyDeleteA flirtatious aria
By Danielle de Niese
This was a lot more different than what i had expected it to be. If i'm being completely honest i only chose to watch this video because it hat just 5 minutes long. She was singing and dance throughout the whole thing which through me off at first. She was singing opera in a different language which i could not make it out. It was pretty interesting though cause you could tell the kind of story she was telling and the feelings she was trying to express just by the way she used her voice and moved her body. She also used a bunch a facial expressions which helped in order to keep the ted talk lively and entertaining.
Ted Talk Response #8
ReplyDeleteCould a drug prevent depression and PTSD? by Rebecca Brachman
I was interested in this Ted Talk because of my psychology class. In my class we constantly study and learn about new disorders including depression and PTSD. We discuss and analyze the treatment and casual factors of the disorders. I thought it would be interesting to learn about the possibility of a new drug that could prevent these disorders. I like this ted talk because the speaker, Rebecca Brachman is very experienced in the psychology field as she focuses on developing drugs to enhance stress resilience and prevent mental illnesses. Her experience in the department makes it easier to believe and support her theory. Her psychology education also makes this ted talk difficult to clearly understand for those who are not familiar with terms and ideas that are used in psychology. She states how in 20, 50, 100 years from now we will look at PTSD and depression as a thing in the past which creates hope for those who have the disorder or those who know someone with it.
1. Judson Brewer- Ways to break a bad habit
ReplyDeleteIn his Ted Talk, Brewer starts out by talking about attention spans and his difficulty concentrating while meditating. He then goes to talk about our biological systems, which he called “trigger, act, repeat”, we have that motivate us to do things that make us feel secure and happy and then create a habit of doing so in order to cheer ourselves up. He then applied this to a study on smoking and needing to quit and introduced the idea that we could override this impulse to cheer ourselves up simply by considering what we were doing. I found this idea of the control attainable simply by being aware of our actions to be all at once simplistic, fascinating, and valid. Overall, while he was a sub-par presenter (monotone voice, bland stage presence, lack of personality), his theory and evidence were both very reasonable and applicable to everyday life.
2. The secret U.S. prisons you’ve never heard of before-- Will Potter
Potter is a journalist who has focused his career on CMU’s which are prisons within prisons that severely restrict communication and according to his argument, are for political prisoners. Through a variety of primary sources and first hand interviews, Potter reveals his sources and provides evidence of the existence of these prisons and their purpose. Also, as he provides examples of prisoners he shows pictures of them and provides details about their families and the seemingly domestic crimes (animal right’s activists, unknowing bearing witness to a loan to a terrorist) that got them classified as domestic terrorists. Beyond giving a narrative for the prisons and the prisoners lives, Potter demonstrates a violation of the constitution and the danger in the amount of power the government has when we turn a blind eye to people we assume are bad.
3. Why it’s good to talk to strangers-- Kio Stark
Stark talked about her experiences meeting strangers and how it brought fulfillment into her life to be open with people and get to know things about them. While her ideas were sweet and she did mention the counterclaim of the danger in this and said that the value of these experiences outranked the fear, I found her examples to be anecdotal and without evidence. While it is possible to create a convincing article without graphs and statistics, her argument in and of itself and she as a presenter was not compelling enough to override this. I found her position to be naive and unfounded and while I agree that there is value in communication with new people and in meeting them, I failed to see the point of her argument or the relevance to modern day society. Overall, she lacked conviction and proof and her talk seemed to be entirely based on her personal beliefs, ultimately causing it to fall flat.
4. This is what happens when you reply to spam email-- james Veitch
Veitch was an excellent presenter. Throughout his talk he described his first experience replying to a spam email and the hysterical correspondence that occurred in the weeks to follow. The emails were so ridiculous (creating codes that equated bank transfers to giant gummy lizards) that they were almost satirical. He seemed to cleverly be commenting on the stupidity of scammers and how far people will go for greed.
5. The feat of unsubscribing- James Veitch
ReplyDeleteVeitch recounts his attempt to unsubscribe from a supermarket chain email about a store opening. When he failed to unsubscribe, the company continued to end him emails. Finally, he decided to play into their game and go with it. In doing so he was able to completely mess with the replier by becoming overly excited to match their enthusiasm about the opening and then setting up a program to automatically reply to all case numbers with an identical case number email starting with number 1 and increasing each time. At the time of the talk he had gotten and replied to above 21,000 emails between from the program. This was all very amusing but through it he communicated the choice we have to play the game that the bureaucracy creates rather than being complicit or ignoring it.
6. Relationships are hard. Why?- Stan Tatkin
Tatkin started by acknowledging that relationships were hard and attributed this to two main factors: one the assumption that someone is always right and two that it is our nature to protect ourselves and each other from conflict so we automatically try to avoid direct fights by not having them in person. I found the first particularly amusing because it is rather applicable to my own viewpoint that an argument can always be won (which only ever leads to longer arguments on who flicked the other first or the stupidity of clash royale). His second point also made a lot of sense and he further explained it by detailing how means of communication such as email and texting only worsen fights because we can’t see visual cues. However, it was kind of hard to distinguish his main ideas from the rest because he rambled on a lot and was really boring without much evidence beyond his experience as a therapist which limited the impact of his talk.
7. How to sound smart in your TEDx talk- Will Stephen
In his talk, Stephen spent the whole time making fun of the typical structure of a ted talk and all the while insisting to his audience that he had absolutely no point, but that by speaking as if it was important and motioning with his hands, and following other general indicators of a good talk, he could make what he was talking about important. To further model the formula, he inserted random graphs, numbers, and images, and told the audience that he was telling a personal story to make him seem vulnerable. This talk was fascinating because it so accurately copied a ted talk but contained no content, and the whole time we were falling for it and waiting for his big reveal, which never came. It was funny to see how deeply we searched for a deeper meaning when none existed.
*also Gavin thinks he’s funny and decided to copy the speaker--- try and believe he did actually watch the talk and everything he’s written is in fact true but taken completely out of context.
8. Reggie Watts disorients you in the most entertaining way-- Reggie Watts
This ted talk was very confusing. The title implies that it would be but like with the last talk we assumed there was some grand reveal at the end and as the talk continued on and the remaining time dwindled, we somehow kept expecting another ending right up until the video ended. While I am not sure what point Watts was trying to make, it was again interesting to see my reaction and to look at the fact that I assumed that because this was a ted talk, it had to have some meaningful and informative point. This is only one example in which I have a preconceived idea that something is a credible source, so I expect and believe that is has a greater meaning… and look I did it again, I found a point/life lesson in a talk where the author clearly had no intended meaning… crikey.
1.judson brewer ways to break a bad habit
ReplyDeleteJudson brewer discusses how to break a bad habit. As humans we are designed to find something like food, eat, feel good then repeat. He called this trigger act happy repeat. As we progress into a society that has commodities like cigarettes and cake, we over use these commodities resulting in being “fat and ugly” (Riley Flanagan). Judson believes that if we think and question why we are succumbing to the craving of smoking a cigarette or eating cake, we will realize what we are doing is horrible. Overall kind of boring speaker but interesting topic.
2. The secret u.s. Prisons you've never heard of before
Will potter in his ted talk goes into the basic human rights that us Americans should have. He then continues on, showing that those rights are completely violated with the use of cmu prisions (prisions for domestic terrorists). These pridiond are run by the FBI and what they do is break almost everything America is built on. Potter had two examples where people were thrown in these jails because they had a political opinion that didn't conform to typical American beliefs. Potter states that we need to bring awareness on these prisions to make a change.
3. Why it's good to talk to strangers
Kim stark talks about why we should talk to strangers. Out of all the ted talks I have seen this has been far and away one of the most boring ones I have ever seen. Her stories were not really factual and completely anecdotal. It was hard to become interested in what she was saying, along with that she lacked the confidence to do well in her talk. Not a great experience would not recommend.
4.This is what happens when you reply to spam email
James Veitch is a comedic genius. As a beautiful man with a lovely accent, he is extremely easy to watch. What he does is reply to spam emails in a hilarious fashion. He drags out conversations with people who create spam emails and that is it. He fuses stories together extremely well and captivates the audience. He is the perfect speaker.
5. The feat of unsubscribing
ReplyDeleteJames veitch is a victim to stores putting him on mailing lists. The atrocities he has faced include unsubscribing then still getting an ad to go to a new store opening. Being fed up with the stores shenanigans he decides to email them back, and he will be bringing a bouncy castle. James is a stupendous speaker who keeps the entire audience laughing and entertained. The problem with his videos is that he doesn't go into depth about issues that deal with social economic or political issues but they are hilarious and worth watching.
6. Relationships are hard. Why?
Stan tutkin talks about relationships. He states that the root of all relationship problems is the assumption of one side believing they are right. While this is an interesting idea about how most relationships end, it was hard to follow because he was boring. He makes valid points that make sense but because this is a ted talk, there is a prerequisite to be semi interesting and he just was not really there. Okay talk but not great.
7.how to sound smart in your tedx-talk will Stephen
This ted talk teaches one how to be a phenomenal public speaker that oozes intelligence. Will Stephen had it all. The statistics and numbers he presented were extremely eye opening to understand how to sound smart. There were tons of visuals to guide the way in his ted talk journey. He went over the appropriate body language and how to dress well for the occasion. His personal story is one to behold and I can safely say that he is one of the greats in the ted talk world. This video is definitely worth watching, a instant classic.
8. Reggie watts disorients you in the most entertaining way
I am at a loss. Reggie watts starts of speaking in four different languages. He then talks about something which I could not follow them proceeds to show the audience his singing and beat boxing abilities. He then continues to make no sense when he talks. He shows the crowd three new pieces of music that is gibberish in rhythm. I a, still not sure what this ted talk is about but I was definitely left disoriented like the title says.
2. Andreas Ekström: The moral bias behind your search results
ReplyDeleteEkstrom is an expert in philosophy in technology. The foremost contributing factor to the quality of his TED talk is his impressive, precise diction that strikes hard, with value. Through his presentation, I learned that maybe I should not use Google for knowledge on everything. Facts such as "What is the capital of France?" are perfectly answered by search engines like Google, but more complicated knowledge questions require further research using a variety of sources. Although I acknowledge this while writing academic papers, I truthfully do not do this in my everyday life to find answers about nonacademic matters. The faith put in Google to find knowledge can be dangerous due to the moral bias of its results. For example, part of its algorithm does not present the extremely controversial results first, such as racist articles. When googling, the more politically correct knowledge will pop up. Also, they intervene to clean up different figures over others, such as searching Michelle Obama rather than a terrorist like Brady. "Behind every algorithm there is a person."
3. Jeremy Howard: The wonderful and terrifying implications of computers that can learn
ReplyDeleteHoward, as a machine learning practitioner, provides a unique perspective on computers and what they are capable of. Although this is a longer TED talk, it is relevant to the path I will lead in my future.
Programs that are extremely complex such as learning checkers or decision making in self driving cars do not and should not be manually programmed. Machine learning allows programs to learn. Although Howards presenting style appears relatively laid back, he still consistently and rapidly delivers information which was interesting. According to Howard, computers can see, read, and write better than humans. Also, he claims that computers can view microscope views of parts of patients such as areas of cancer and categorize the type of cancer more precisely than doctors. Also, machine programmers can start companys such as linguistic translating applications or a medical diagnostic company without being experts in medicine or linguistics, which is stunning! AND SCARY! He also claims that computers can replace 80% of jobs in 1st world countries, and he is worried about how those jobs will be replaced. This is because humans are improving efficiency at a linear rate and computers are improving at an exponential rate, according to Howard.
4. Steven Johnson: The playful wonderland behind great inventions
ReplyDeleteThrough the medium of a children's playbook, Johnson provides a captivating and yet eye opening video to reveal how the human race becomes better."Necessity isn't always the mother of invention... simple delight and amusement eventually led us to profound breakthroughs." Although Johnson's advice to make the acquiring of knowledge and the creation of inventions a playful task is possibly a little overly optimistic, it allows me to see that possibly the goal of making work fun can be attainable because that is how many great innovations have came to be in the past: "You'll find the future, wherever people are having the most fun."
“What a driverless world could look like” by Wanis Kabbaj explores the concepts behind traffic and transportation in the modern world. Kabbaj details his study on how humans are wasting time, energy, and potential with the transport system we have implemented in modern society. He cites his inspiration as coming from the human body- the blood cells. Kabbaj explains how blood cells travel freely all over the body, and potentially travel 42,000 miles of veins to get to a destination, all in a short amount of time. Kabbaj reveals that their secret is the use of 3D movement, up, down, sideways, all over. He details a couple concepts of public transport that are in development, however you must discover those on your own! The talk is fairly short at around 12 minutes, yet very much worth a watch if you are interested in the concept of the future of travel.
ReplyDelete“Can a Divided America heal?” is possibly one of the most thought provoking talks I've watched this year, most likely because of its timing and relevance. Filmed seemingly right before the election, Jonathan Haidt answers questions pertaining to the massive political and moral divide in the United States. I truly believe everyone should watch this talk, just for its message and answers for how we as a country should act after the election. The talk is 20 minutes long, however, it's content keeps you invested. I really do not want to spoil any parts but essentially Haidt stresses the importance to understand the other side and use true empathy, and make a hard effort to understand and get along with the other side.
“Lies, damned lies and statistics (about TEDTalks)” is a pretty short talk that is fairly amusing and does not provide any real deep discussion rather than meaningless statistics that are fun to see. In other words it's pretty damn interesting. Sebastian Wernickle complied many TED talks by how successful they are based on various variables. Being a stats student myself, it was interesting to see the effort Wernickle put into a study on what makes successful TED talks successful. He even compiled a cheat sheet of sorts that contains a key to how to create the most successful TED talk. The talk is very quick, however is funny and interesting in regards to statistics and how we find things interesting.
In “Where are the Baby Dinosaurs”, paleontologist Jack Horner details his theory on why there are not many baby dinosaurs found. He explains that scientists love to name things, claiming them as their discoveries, so many different dinosaurs that looked different were given different names. In doing this, scientists basically named baby dinosaurs as different species. This talk was a good example of how the scientific method can be flawed, as many scientists mistook baby dinosaurs as a new species, which in turn led them to ‘claim’ this “new species”, all led by greed. The talk is about 15 mins long, and if you are genuinely interested in dinosaurs and old bones then this talk will be pretty interesting. It also shows a good amount of the ways paleontologists do their work.
In “Let's teach for mastery--not test scores”, Sal Khan explains his viewpoints on how the current system of education is set up. Khan, creator of popular website Khan Academy, details the inefficiency of the current system, as teachers are teaching their students to do well on the upcoming test, and will move on to a new topic afterwards. What this creates is a cycle of students not understanding foundation work, which in turn leaves them lost when the teacher moves on to the next topic. Khan nails the failure of the current system, and proposes that we shift toward a system where students master the foundation and move on. With this, he believes that anyone is capable of anything, as mastery of anything is possible. The talk is 10 minutes long and very insightful, plus he sounds like Obama and his voice is really soothing. I would definitely recommend this talk, as any teacher should take a look at this proposed system.
ReplyDeleteSam Berns chronicles his life while living with Progeria, in the talk “My Philosophy for a happy life”. In a very emotional and touching talk, 17 year old Sam goes over his ideals that leads him to live a life full of
happiness and enjoyment, where most would not. I do not want to spoil the whole talk, however most of his ideals are very simple and easy things everyone can enjoy and do, which in turn does inspire one to be the best them they can. The fact that Sam could live this very happy life speaks wonders to the amazing thing that is the human soul, as he lived a life happier than most people I know. The talk is not very long, around 14 minutes, and I would recommend watching it on a day where you aren't feeling very emotional, as the ol’ drainage pipes will be pumpin.
In “What will humans look like in 100 years” Juan Enriquez explains the various modifications humans have made on one another in these modern times. Enriquez covers topics from prosthetics to super strong hearing aids, and how each in someway is changing the human body in some way. Eventually he ends with the topic of space travel, and if humans want to avoid extinction on Earth, we must modify our bodies in ways that will allow us to live and survive in any environment that is not Earth. The talk is pretty long, and I personally would not recommend it, as it does tend to take a while for it to gain any traction. Overall it is fairly interesting, as the evolution of humans is a very interesting topic.
Astronaut Chris Hadfield chronicles an incident that stuck with him in his talk “What I learned from going blind in space”. Hadfield describes what it is like going up in space, and all the dangers that come with it. Just for the astronaut stories alone this talk is really fascinating and cool, however the message his brings is very solid as well. No matter how scared or worries we might be, if we take challenges in small steps, we can overcome the big frights that trouble us. The talk is around 15 minutes, and I enjoyed every minute of it. I would recommend this talk to anyone who nerds out over space, as well as anyone who needs some inspiration in facing their fears.
5. Laura Vanderkam: How to gain control of your free time
ReplyDeleteHer message for time management is more simple than I expected, and her satirical intro gave her message a realistic tone. Time is highly elastic, and time will stretch to accommodate what we need to do. I do not have time means to Vanderkam that we do not want to do it. Time is a choice. What made her talk more valuable than just a few tricks to save time, was she suggested a strategy to fill times that people typically waste. Also, not only should one be more efficient with time, but their down time should be filled with comforts that are more valuable than just watching stupid internet videos. Although this is in a strange time for me personally to watch a time management video, a Saturday a week from Christmas break, it makes me realize that I can do more work and still have a comfortable amount of down time.
6. Joe Lassiter: We need nuclear power to solve climate change
ReplyDeleteDue to my recent internal assessment on climate change, I decided to watch a TED talk on a possible solution to the monumental task of "solving" it. The reason that this problem is so large is that CO2 emission literally has to reach 0 for the human race, according to Lassiter. One of the issues that he touches on is unregulated carbon emissions in 3rd world countries, specifically China, who according to Lassiter do not have any other natural fuels other than dangerous sources like coal. Poor countries do what they must to provide, which includes choosing burning coal for fuel. The solution? Nuclear power. Third world countries must have realistic alternatives to provide for their citizens, because that is what motivates change in most nations. "New nuclear" plants specifically are what passes the "Chindia test." The historical military mindset that hangs over nuclear power confuses most people that it is more expensive and less sufficient than nuclear power actually is. However, Lassiter did not convince me that he was an expert in this field due to the small fraction of his talk that he actually talked about nuclear power, and mainly talking about why humans emit so much carbon.
7. Kelli Jean Drinkwater: Enough with the fear of fat
ReplyDeleteAs a result of taking the MIT morals test (the test where you choose the decisions for a self driving car), I know that I am extremely biased towards fit people, meaning I subconsciously value them over unfit people. Therefore, I thought it would be valuable to try and understand the perspective of not just an unfit person, but a "FAT person"-Drinkwater's words. I agree with her that I must question my bias, because I know that some people can not control their size(not just people that are slightly deviating, but extremely). Her argument against the BMI test was valid. Her argument for how to solve body image problems is radical arguments on the other spectrum must negate the other, which I do not completely agree with. I must say, she did not provide a valid argument for people to be obese because of choice. I still think that people that are not naturally obese but have reached that point through lifestyle should make a change, and I would love to have a conversation with someone in the movement she represents that can bring up some legitimate points, but until then I will have a bias towards fit people. To clarify, being fit to me is not just being skinny, but just exercising every now and then rather than not.
8.Jia Jiang: What I learned from 100 days of rejection
ReplyDeleteI chose this video because I value the ability to approach rejection as efficiently as possible. Jia Jiang got me to connect with him while talking about his ambitious mindset before grade school, and then how rejection as a 14 year old held him back for years to come... because he never wanted to be rejected by a teacher or anyone else again. As a Chinese immigrant, he worked hard when he came to America but did not succeed because of his flight reaction to the corporate competition that the USA symbolizes. Jiang's charismatic personality had the audience dying with laughter, and I literally loled too. One of the lessons he provided was, you should directly deal with the doubt that you know some people feel when you interact with them. "I could achieve my life goals by just asking." Rejections should be transformed into opportunities.
#1: “Bring on the female superheroes!” by Christopher Bell
ReplyDeleteBell demonstrates the lack of representation of female characters from large franchises from personal experience with his daughter. He explains how there are 6 companies that run the bulk of American media and that they cannot control what we think, but by controlling available merchandise and representation, they can control what we talk about and what is popular. He makes a great point that since disney is one of the companies and does in fact purposefully refrain from selling female superheroes, it teaches our children that females cannot fit into the category.
#2: Jia Jiang: What I learned from 100 days of rejection
Jiang talked about how a rejection when he was six years old caused him to continually fear rejection and stop attempting to meet his goals. With his attempt at 100 days of rejection, he learned after the first day that negotiating and questioning your own rejection can in fact make the difference. Jiang also found that expressing the doubts that the other party may feel can help create a sort of bond due to similar thinking. After 100 days, Jiang ended up teaching a lesson at a university, planting flowers in a stranger’s backyard, and learning how to overcome one of his largest fears. This was very insightful to me considering one of my main fears is rejection, and I can imagine that this would be also very impactful towards others.
#3: “ Beats that defy boxes” by Reggie Watts
I’m a little confused about this one. I had to read the transcript because I wasn’t sure what was going on. Watts states a lot of random, wordy, confusing life advice in different accents and languages that don’t really have any purpose. It sorta resembled Polonius’s long list of random advice to Laertes. I think he is making fun of most people who make TED Talks during this part, but then he goes on to make fun beat boxing loop songs that I really enjoyed.
#4: Raffaello D'Andrea: Meet the dazzling flying machines of the future
D’Andrea demonstrates his multiple autonomous drone inventions. Each are modeled for different purposes: to reduce the amount of parts moving, be resistant to any outside forces, have multiple ways to fly incase of damage, and fly in all directions and rotations in case of harsh weather. They can be used to independently do tasks and work in a group of other drones to create large-scale structures.
#5: “Teen wonders play bluegrass” by Sleepy Man Banjo Boys
Three brothers from New Jersey who are ten, thirteen, and fourteen and in a bluegrass band play two songs. They played the fiddle, the banjo, and the guitar and it was extremely fast paced and really great. The ten-year-old on the banjo was absolutely phenomenal and it was really impressive to see such young kids play so well and so fast.
#6: Anthony Goldbloom: The jobs we'll lose to machines -- and the ones we won't
ReplyDeleteThis TED Talk stressed me out really bad because I know that I want to be an ophthalmologist and, huzzah, the second job besides an essay grader was an ophthalmologist. That was a very big jump and that’s terrifying for me. He makes a point that the jobs that won’t get taken over by machines are ones that are constantly changing or face a wide variation of data considering that machines are trained from a compiled set of millions of similar data. This makes me ponder what our future will be like if machines really do take over jobs and wonder just how the economy would work.
#7: Laura Vanderkam: How to gain control of your free time
Vanderkam draws to attention the true meaning of “I don’t have time”. In reality it means “it is not my priority” because time bends to fit the situations we want to have. Vanderkam uses the example of a very busy woman who suddenly had to deal with a water heater breaking. In her time log, it took 7 full hours to fix the heater and replace the damage. When asking any random person if they could take 7 hours out of their week in order to work on something new such as train for a triathalon or take up knitting, the average person would say of course not because they have no time. But in this case, 7 hours out of a week for a water heater breaking was found. In this talk, Vanderkam expresses that there is time and in order to assess if you “have time” to do something, one should consider how much of a priority the task is. In this way, we can find the time to fit in experiences that we do want to have rather than simply reject them all due to lack of time.
#8: Hannah Brencher: Love letters to strangers
Brencher addresses the loss of sentimentality and meaning of our words to each other due to the transition into a post-literate society. She tells about how handwritten letters from her mother made her feel and when she felt at the peak of her depression, she wrote handwritten letters and scattered them around New York City, reaching out to any and every soul in attempt to make them feel loved even if by a stranger who they would never come in contact with. She continues to do so after posting on the internet that she would write letters to anyone, no questions asked. This lead to touching the hearts of hundreds and being a source of sympathy and human connection when someone needed it.
1) Insightful human portraits made from data | R. Luke DuBois
ReplyDeleteR. Luke Dubois qualifies himself first as an artist, then as a programmer, and finally a composer. His talk explores a variety of art installments and projects which take data and create visual representations of it. I was unsure what to expect when I clicked on this talk, but I ended up loving it. All of the pieces were striking, thought provoking and sometimes funny in their own right. DuBois at times started portions of the talk in ways that made him appear strange (presenting a program that he made which involves a massive amount of pictures of Britney Spears, and using them to create a surveillance program designed for her face specifically), but then explained it as an art piece with a clear purpose (how do we reconcile our fear of constant surveillance with our enraptured surveillance of celebrities?). My favorite art piece that DuBois shared was a set of “portraits” of U.S. presidents as words they used most in their state of the union addresses. Through each example, DuBois emphasized the danger of reducing people and things to statistics, and encouraged the viewer to visualize data in new and interesting ways. DuBois is a humorous speaker with a poignant message, and I would highly recommend this talk.
2) To Fall in Love with Anyone | Mandy Len Catron
I clicked on this video because I had heard about the study it focuses on (a series of questions that supposedly can make anyone fall in love) and thought that the concept seemed ridiculous. Catron acknowledges that the study is dubious, and then explores the deeper meanings of love in society. She makes the distinction between love and lasting love, and argues that people have been so enraptured by the study she took part in because we as a society prioritize romantic love. She is clearly passionate about the topic, and I found myself enjoying this TED talk. Catron’s argues that platonic love, and other kinds of love are just as important as romantic love. She is critical of the fact that people often fail to distinguish between falling in love and staying in love in media. I thought that this was an intriguing talk, and I found it surprisingly insightful.
3) Humor At Work l Andrew Tarvin
I loved this TED talk. Tarvin offers a compelling and hilarious argument for humor in the workplace and in life. I wasn’t sure what to expect from him, but when he described how he had used a powerpoint made entirely in MS paint during one of the most important interviews of his life, and showed the slides, I couldn’t stop laughing. Tarvin argues that people who use humor at work are happier in life, make more money, are more successful and are less stressed. He thoroughly refutes any excuses for not using humor while making the audience laugh. This talk brightened my day, and reminded me how much humor can help when I feel stressed and overwhelmed.
4) City Flags I Roman Mars
I clicked on this video because I realized I knew nothing about city flags, and was curious to see what about them could fill the duration of a TED talk. My favorite thing about this talk was that it broke some of the TED talk format: Mars delivers his talk in a partially deconstructed radio show format which I was initially skeptical of but found that it made the entire experience more entertaining and allowed Mars to play clips from interviews onstage to further his point, rather than simply quoting. It allowed him to show not only his passion for city flags, but the passion of others. He describes the main rules for flag design, and, though these rules and some examples, implores the audience to improve the general quality of city flags across the United States. Mars’ passion for the topic is contagious once he gets past his initial nervousness. Many of the flag examples were hilariously bad, and I found myself caring more than I thought I could about this topic. I would recommend this talk to anyone who wants to see someone talk about what they love, and learn about the importance of city flags.
5) Learning from dirty jobs | Mike Rowe
ReplyDeleteI chose this talk because I was curious about what Mike Rowe had to say. Rowe delivers a reasoned argument for manual labor and encourages viewers to acknowledge that there are things that people who do certain jobs know better from experience than many people believe they know from research without firsthand experience. He makes the case that we as a society should have more respect for manual labor in general, and to question the platitudes we hear in everyday life surrounding work. Mike Rowe is a personable and eloquent speaker, and he voiced some unusual perspectives (one such point was that safety, in many workplaces, is third). His idea that we as a society have wage a war on work is an intriguing one. Mike Rowe’s excellent delivery of fresh perspective made this TED talk worthwhile.
6) A temporary tattoo that brings hospital care to the home | Todd Coleman
I clicked on this video because I assumed it would be a discussion of conceptual technology. I was delighted to find how close to reality this technology actually was, and the fact that Coleman and his team worked to address the need this technology attempts to sate, but the potential problems the technology could present. I had never previously thought about how automated data collection, even for medical purposes, could be hindered by the data plans of patients, or the degree to which trust of the patients in this new technology was factored into the creation process. Coleman’s talk made me happy that he and people like him work to address unintended factors in order to create useful, affordable technology that can move society forward.
7) Everything you hear on film is a lie | Tasos Frantzolas
This video’s title sounded like a clickbait conspiracy theory, yet because it came from TED I knew there had to be some logic to it. I was not disappointed. Frantzola describes how good art, in the words of Oscar Wilde, has to be a lie, and that bad art comes from attempting to perfectly replicate reality. He describes how sounds in film are added almost exclusively in post-production, and how our brains still link audio to the film with only slight suggestion to. Surprisingly, the real noise of a bird flapping its wings sounds more fake to us than shaking kitchen gloves. Frantzolas describes the complexity of sound design work, and provides a delightful explanation of the ingenuity required. He describes the utility of audio tools like reverb, silence, ambience, and symbolic sound (both onscreen and acousmatic) in creating emotion. I loved this TED talk for its detail and for everything Frantzolas had to say questioning and ultimately praising the suggestibility of sense perception.
8) How one tweet can ruin your life | Jon Ronson
Ronson provides an empathetic look into how people interact online. Through a variety of examples, he empathizes with people who are attacked and whose lives can be ruined by saying something online that is taken the wrong way. He also has empathy for the people who persecute those who they feel are oppressors and wrongdoers online. I loved this talk because it encouraged me to question if every time I’ve seen a screenshotted tweet or conversation, if the person really meant what they said in the way it was taken. It allowed me to appreciate the toxicity of mob mentality on the internet and the importance of empathizing with other users in order to combat it. I had not previously considered the extent to which the internet can utterly ruin a person’s life simply because of a single tweet in the span of a few hours. Ronson discusses a variety of horrifying topics, yet he finds the good in all of it, and I highly encourage this TED talk for anyone who has ever gotten in an argument online or seen someone persecuted because of a damning tweet.
#1: The Beauty of Human Skin in Every Color by Angélica Dass
ReplyDeleteDass discusses the issue of race associated with the color of our skin, and how we categorize people into 4 colors, red, yellow, black, and white, when realistically no person is any of the aforementioned colors. She also talks about the inspiration behind the creation of her portrait project, Humanæ, which challenges how society thinks about skin color and ethnic identity. I think this is a very cool project because it portrays that no one is red, yellow, black, or white, and that there is an entire spectrum of skin color. There are many colors, enough to match every skin tone, that can express the uniqueness of every individual's skin tone. I found it inspiring that such a simple project of taking a portrait picture of someone can be moving all around the world and truly bring out someone’s beauty despite their color.
#2: How to Stay Calm When You Know You'll Be Stressed by Daniel Levitin
ReplyDeleteLevitin raises the topic of what happens in our brains when placed under stress, and what we can do to avoid stress. When the human body is stressed, its brain releases cortisol which inhibits rational, logical decision making skills and clouds our thinking. I like that Levitin chose to introduce his topic with a personal funny story, which grabbed my attention. I was then expecting him to actually tell his audience how to stay calm in stressful situations, but he instead decided to choose a more scientific approach about pharmaceuticals. I personally became uninterested and eventually bored throughout the talk. I found the title a bit misleading, and disliked that Levitin’s only advice relevant to the title of his talk was to “ think ahead to what those failures might be,” which came near the end of the talk.
#3: My Philosophy for a Happy Life by Sam Berns
ReplyDeleteBerns, a 17 year old teen diagnosed with progeria, illustrates his 3 aspects of living a happier life which include not feeling bad for yourself, surrounding yourself with people you want to be around, and always moving forward. I like that although there were only 3 aspects of his philosophy, it was a short and sweet talk that was still very inspiring and meaningful. It opened my eyes to see that there are many people in this world, including myself at times, that complains about their life and is not happy with it when Sam Berns, who most would think lives a very difficult life, is happier than us. It is interesting to think that many people complain about things are negligible and unworthy, when there are plenty of others who have worse lives than us and do have things that are worth worrying about. I am happy to know that Berns had a positive outlook on life and did not allow his illness to affect his happiness. I hope he lived a very happy and good life.
#4: Beatbox Brilliance by Tom Thum
ReplyDeleteTom Thum is an excellent beatboxer who shows off his talent of beatboxing throughout the entire TEDtalk. I think this is the most creative talk I have ever watched and I am truly impressed by his skills. Thum was very playful and incorporated lots of humor, which grabbed at my attention throughout the talk. My favorite part was when he took us “around the world” through beatboxing and created beats that correlated to each country we “visited.” It was interesting to see how he perceived each country and incorporated the country’s culture into the rhythm and style he created for it. I personally did not know this level of beatboxing existed and people could beatbox this well. This TEDtalk has now motivated me to try beatboxing a little myself, even though I know I will likely fail.
#5: Can You Really Tell If a Kid Is Lying? by Kang Lee
ReplyDeleteLee explores what physiologically happens to children when they lie and explores a new approach that not only detects lies, but can also reveal hidden emotions. It was interesting to see how badly people were with detecting lies, especially with children because it is widely believed that children are not good at lying and they are transparent with their emotions. Lee presents some statistics about how well people detect lies in children, which was interesting because almost all adults are not that great at knowing when a child lies. I think it would be cool to develop technology that can tell us if someone is lying, let alone unveil a person’s true emotions. I think this would help in a variety of ways such as a detective interrogating a person, or a teacher suspecting if a student is anxious or stressed about a particular topic being taught. This was not the most engrossing or tasteful tedtalk I have ever watched, but the small, funny or interesting moments made up for the dull ones.
#6: A Simple Way to Break a Bad Habit by Judson Brewer
ReplyDeleteBrewer offers a simple way to break a bad habit, which is to enter a state of mindfulness and become curious about our bad habit before we commit them. For example, before one smokes a serious, he or she should thoughtfully question what they are getting from this, and whether smoking that cigarette is really necessary or worthy. We know that bad habits are bad for us, but we can suppress our addictions and urges by being curious about them. I thought the TEDtalk was fairly interesting, but I think Brewer could have elaborated more about this “simple” method. I think this technique can work for smaller things, but I am skeptical about how effective it may be with more serious issues such as alcoholism or drug addictions.
#7: My Escape from North Korea by Hyeonseo Lee
ReplyDeleteLee retells her story of living in North Korea, and the struggle of her escape from North Korea in order to create a better life for her and her family. When Lee was a young girl, she thought her country was the best on the planet and was secluded from the realities of the outside world. It was not until a famine hit when Lee realized how horrible living conditions were in North Korea. She fled to China when she was 14 and spent all her life trying to help her family escape so they could all live in South Korea. It was very touching and brave of Lee to risk her life to rescue her parents and come to TED to tell her story to others. It was interesting to see how disillusioned Lee was as a young child and this TEDTalk served as a reminder of how lucky we are to live in country more prosperous than others. The TEDTalk was overall interesting and I was impressively not distracted at all throughout the entire talk.
#8: Why Domestic Violence Victims Don't Leave by Leslie Morgan Steiner
ReplyDeleteSteiner tells her dark story of an abusive relationship and how she fell into a “crazy love,” where the man she was madly in love with had repeatedly abused her and threatened her life. Also, Steiner disproves the misconceptions about domestic violence victims and attempts to answer the question, “Why does [the victim] stay?” I think it is very important to shed light on domestic violence, end victim blaming, and correct misconceptions. Most people do not understand how hard it is for a victim of domestic violence to escape it, so I like that Steiner chose to tell her story and discuss domestic violence. I always liked that Steiner mentioned men are victims of domestic violence as well because it is a widely believed stereotype that this is only a “woman’s issue.” This TEDTalk was very compelling interesting to me, and I like how Steiner chose to approach this sensitive topic.
1.) Helen Fisher: “The brain in love”
ReplyDeleteIn this TED Talk, Fisher explores the different aspects as to how our brain changes when we are in love and if there is any significance to explain why we feel the way we do when we are in love. There are certain parts of our brain designed for love, more specifically romantic love, and they release dopamine to the other parts of our brain, which is why we feel so good in love. Fisher talks about how our brain responds to love acts in the same way as it does when someone does cocaine, with its different stages of obsession to relapsing. Helen’s talk is very interesting and towards the end she talks about some of her other research where she tries to answer the question of why we are drawn to one person more than another. I would recommend this TED Talk because the way Fisher holds herself is very well and she adds in some comedic aspects to her very thorough talk.
2.) Sarah Kay: “If I should have a daughter…”
Kay starts out her TED Talk with a spoken word poetry about how she would raise her daughter and all the ways she would inspire her to be the best version of herself. After this, Kay talks about her own personal journey with spoken word and how she fell in love with it. She says that the three stages of her journey were: I can, I will, and infusing her life and what she learns into her words even though they are both constantly changing. In this TED Talk Kay touches on how spoken word has changed her life and how she has inspired others to let spoken word change their lives too. She ends her Talk with another one of her poems called “Hiroshima.” This poem is about how she sees positivity and growth in everything that is dark and how she is trying her best to get this life rite and be the best version of herself that she can be. Her TED Talk is amazing and she genuinely captures the audience by being very personal and relatable to her hardships in life. She is an inspiring person, but at times all of her hand gestures became distracting. I would definitely recommend this TED Talk to anyone.
3.) Kate Adams: “4 larger-than-life lessons from soap operas”
Many people believe that the over dramatic soap operas have no significant life lessons, but Kate Adams proves them wrong in her TED Talk. She starts off by talking about her own personal history with soap operas and how they have affected who she is. Then she discusses the 4 life lessons and relates each one to an example in a soap and one in everyday life in order to prove her point more. Her first life lesson is to never surrender, meaning to always try your hardest and never accept defeat. Her second life lesson is to sacrifice your ego, meaning put aside your own confidence and be vulnerable. The third lesson that Adams talks about is that evolution is natural and to accept change and what comes. The last life lesson that soap operas teach is that resurrection is possible. From this she means that you can keep yourself up once you have hit the bottom and that the end is never the end. This is a very interesting talk and Adams includes many comedic elements in order to keep her audience interested.
4.) Adam Galinsky: “How to speak up for yourself”
ReplyDeleteIn Galinsky’s TED Talk he talks about why we as humans rarely stand up for ourselves and why, when we do or do not, we tend to be punished. He says that it is because we each have our own “Acceptable Range” of how we act and how we speak. On the two ends of the spectrum, there is either too strong or too weak. These are affected by how much power one has and because we have to go out of our range in order to be in these two sides, we see punishment as the ending result. So, we only ever stay in our “Acceptable Range” for where we will not get hurt. Galinsky talks about the differences in power and how that affects what we do and he connects it back to the gender struggle between men and women. Instead of seeing gender problems as a result of differences in sex, he sees it as a difference of power. Towards the end Galinsky touches more on why we do speak up when we do. It is because we are advocating for others, we are speaking up about our passion, and we have others backing us up. This was a good TED Talk, but it is not what I expected. Even though Galinsky touched on why we speak up, he did not answer the overarching question of how to speak up for ourselves and how to assert ourselves in certain situations.
5.) Karen Thompson Walker: “What fear can teach us”
In this TED Talk, Karen Thompson Walker talks about the positive sides of fears and how we pay attention to the more detailed ones other than our biggest fears. She talks about how our fears relate to our imagination, and those with the most vivid imagination tend to have the most vivid fears. Instead of looking at fear in a negative light, she says that we should treat fear how we read a novel, with our fear being the story and us being the author. In addition to being the author, we should also be the reader and see the different perspectives of our fear. She relates her topic of fear to how if we go around something we fear and go towards a different outcome, we tend to overlook the fears that come along with the different route due to our initial fears taking over our mind. Walker concludes her TED Talk by discussing how we should listen less to our broad and exaggerated fears, and more to our subtle everyday fears. This was an interesting TED Talk, but the way Walker held herself made it boring at times and failed to fully capture the audience.
6.) Trevor Copp and Jeff Fox: “Balloon dance that breaks gender roles”
In Copp and Fox’s TED Talk, they talk about the ways that their new way of lead dancing breaks gender role stereotypes. In traditional ballroom dance, the man leads and the woman follows. Seeing partner dances as a relationship, this creates the idea that men are meant to be the strong dominant one, while women are meant to be the more feminine submissive partner in a relationship. Copp and Fox talk about their own experience bringing man to man partnership to a competition where someone said that it was “politically controversial.” This came as a shock to them and they started their new way of leading, called liquid lead. Using this, men and women switch the leading role from time to time and it gives the genders freedom from those stereotypes. With liquid lead, partner dances are seen more as a conversation where each partner goes from speaking to listening, rather than in traditional partner dances it is seen as a male driven conversation. In this TED Talk, Copp and Fox also bring up the fact that with liquid lead each dancer is given the freedom to dance as themselves and not be tied down by each role. This is a great TED Talk and they give different visual examples of liquid lead, which keeps the audience interested.
7.) Laura Vanderkam: “How to gain control of your free time”
ReplyDeleteMany people believe that they can live the life they want by saving time, but Vanderkam believes that in order to life the life you want, time will save itself. Instead of making time for things you need to do, you should make time for the things you want to do. In this TED Talk, Vanderkam touches on the different ways we can gain control of our free time in order to make our lives more enjoyable. She backs up her argument by experimenting on different women and having them log their hours and what they do with that time. Based on this experiment, she concluded that when people say that they “don’t have time” to do something, it really means “it’s not a priority.” And by prioritizing what we want to do in our free time, we gain control of that time. Many people have about 72 hours of free time during their week, where they are not working and sleeping. But they choose to spend their free time filling time, by either watching tv or on their phones. In order to enjoy the time that we have, we must fill our time with what we truly enjoy. Vanderkam’s TED Talk is very interesting and inspiring about what to do with free time and how to make it have a positive impact on our lives.
8.) Cameron Russell: “Looks aren’t everything. Believe me, I’m a model.”
In her TED Talk, Russell starts out by throwing on a different outfit over her skin tight dress in order to add to her viewpoint that looks and images are superficial and not powerful. She talks about her own experience with modeling and how it has changed her. She also goes through a series of photos, one being the professional photo of her and the other being an actual photo of her around the same time. She says that one picture is not of her and the other represents who she actually is. Instead of talking about photoshopping creating the superficial aspects of modeling, she talks about how modeling does not capture who they actually are. Russell talks about an interesting topic, but the way she presents it herself is uninteresting. Her viewpoints are not coherent and she fails to bring it all together into some profound realization, which weakens her talk in total.
Ted Talk #1
ReplyDeleteThis is what happens when you reply to spam email
By: James Veitch
This ted talk caught my attention because I have always wanted to respond to them, but was to scared to. When I was younger I wanted to respond to one of them, but my cousin told me that I could get a virus from just opening them and from there on I just empty my spam folder. This video was very interesting and funny. The presenter always kept the audience attention. He showed all the emails that went on between one spam email address and him. The emails that he sent to the spam email were so random that it just made his presentation really funny. At the end of the video he gave out some really good advise to people who would want to try to send out emails and told them not to use their own email. I do not think that I would ever actually want to send emails back to spam emails just because I am still scared from what my cousin told me so long ago. Even if someone told me that I do not get viruses from spam emails, I do not think I would email them back.
Ted Talk #2
Comedy Hypnotist
By: The Incredible Boris
Boris knew what he was doing throughout the entire ted talk. He kept the whole ted talk interesting and never lost my attention. I decided to watch this video because I have never actually seen a hypnotist do their thing and what other way to see it then on a ted talk. The one thing that I did not like from this ted talk was that he only focused on two people when he had five people on stage. I know that he might have not had enough time to get to everyone, but if he was not going to get to everyone then why bring them up on the stage? They got on stage thinking that they were going to get hypnotized and they did not. Other than that I really liked how he made Daren think that his name was Chip and kept on forgetting his name so that he could get mad. The message he gave his audience was to never have limits. Anything that you wish to do, you could do if you just work hard to achieve it.
Ted Talk #3
Beatbox brilliance
By: Tom Thum
What I like about this Ted talk was that it was funny and entertaining. I liked that way he started this ted talk. He made it seem that what he did was something very inappropriate and then started beat boxing. I chose to watch this ted talk because when I was little I used to tell my mom that I wanted to beatbox and all she said was that if I practiced I could. I thought that she would tell me that I should not do that and so I stopped. I like listening to music or people making music and their process. Another reason that I liked this ted talk was because he was telling a story using music, the music he is creating with his mouth. At the end of this video he creating a whole song beat on the spot with only using his mouth. It had so many different sounds and was very amazing.
Ted Talk #4
ReplyDeleteStereotypes -- funny because they are true
By: Katerina Vrana
Katerina is an actual comedian so this ted talk actually made me laugh out load. While I was watching this ted talk my mom was standing in front of me thinking that I was a crazy person because I was laughing so much. Throughout this whole video I was laughing so much. Towards the end of this she made a she made a joke about she was going to rule the world and how all the different countries were going to be like kids. It was really funny because she really did her research on what was happening all around the world. Everything that she was saying was very true, but because she was saying it ina funny way, it was funny. I would recommend this ted talk to people to watch if they are having a bad day and just want to laugh. I know that watching this video made my day go a lot better and made me get into a better mood.
Ted Talk #5
The storyteller in all of us
By: Zach King
I clicked to watch this ted talk because I had seen Zach on Vine and thought his vines were really cool. The way he edited them made him seem like he was magic. Every single one of his vines had a story to tell and I was really interested in what his ted talk was going to be like. This video taught me that you do not need to be wealthy to do what you would like to do. If you want to create videos, you do not need to be part of a big industry. All you need to do is have a camera and editing tools and you can create whatever videos you want. For all the music composers, singers, and instrument-playing people, you all do not need a big studio to create your piece. The only thing you need is your instruments and a laptop to record. Anyone can do anything if they really want it.
Ted Talk #6
ReplyDeleteFaster than a calculator
By: Arthur Benjamin
The reason I chose to watch this video because I could barley do some mental math myself and I wanted to know how far he could do mental math and how fast. He brought up 3 random people from the audience onto the stage with calculators to let everyone know that he is not lying or cheating. He got up to squaring 4 digit numbers in under 2 seconds. Most of which it just took him to say the number instead of figuring out what the number was. Math is not the only thing that he can do. In the middle of his presentation he asked people from the audience what their birthday was and from that he knew what day of the week they were born on. It was very interesting because how could people know that. He most likely has a trick to do it, but I am not complaining because this was a nice ted talk to watch.
Ted Talk #7
The danger of silence
By: Clint Smith
When I first saw the title of this ted talk I was intrigued. I tried to think on what this ted talk could be about, but I was not sure so I had to click and see it. The way that Clint presented his ted talk was in a poem. It was really interesting because there was one clear message he was sending, to never be silent. If someone is saying bad stuff about the people that you care about you cannot just sit in silence and not do a thing about it. Your voice is everything. It is a weapon. You can use it for good or for evil. If you sit in silence then you are letting everyone else win. Never be silent and never let anyone tell you what to do.
Ted talk #8
The Power of Negative Thinking
By: Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic
I always like to think negatively. I usually say it is so that I do not get my hopes up for nothing, but now it sort turned into something I just end up doing with out even thinking about it. That is why I decided to click on this video. I know that negative thinking does have power over a person, but I wanted to see how much. I liked the way he started this ted talk. He started with jokes to keep the audience entertained until he actually started what the ted talk is really going to be about. I actually thought this video was going to be a different type of video. He talked about how most people a too confident and how being too confident can create bad people. He actually meant that negative thinking was a way to keep us modest and humble.
Ted talk #1
ReplyDeleteWeird, or just different?
By: Derek Sivers
In this Ted talk, Derek Silvers discusses how there truly is a flip side to everything. In America, we typically navigate by identifying street names. However, Sivers explains how this is not a universal method of navigation, and how it actually differs greatly in various parts of the world. For example, in Japan, individuals are able to navigate without getting lost by identifying the names of all the various blocks. He also goes on to explain that the way these Japanese pedestrians are able to locate their homes is through the order in which they were built. For example, the first house ever built on a given block will be house number one, the second house ever built on that block will be house number two, and so forth. All in all, Sivers message is that whatever brilliant idea you may have, the opposite will also be true in some part of the world. Overall, I enjoyed this Ted talk, and while it was rather short, I believe Sivers did an excellent job in captivating the audience.
TED Talks 1-4
ReplyDeleteJackson Katz: Violence against women—it’s a men’s issue
Katz comments that gender violence, including sexual assault and domestic abuse, are men’s issues rather than women’s issues. He effectively questions the audience’s beliefs by criticizing how the dominant group of gender, race, and sexual orientation are often ignored when considering social problems. He used paper and written visuals to demonstrate his points, which was very effective if not particularly visually aesthetic. He reveals great realizations by explaining how our entire cognitive structure is set up to blame victims. Using gestures and an excited tone, he grabs and captivates the audience’s attention. Katz also employs a variety of examples that range from very realistic and specific to very general in order to provide perspective to his listeners. Although he was very passionate, he sometimes appeared nervous, as seen in his breathlessness and the speed at which he spoke. Overall, I thought that his presentation was quite fascinating and enlightening as to how these social issues affect all parties, not just victims and minorities, and that all must be proactive in advocating for equality.
David Rothkopf: How fear drives American politics
Rothkopf gives examples from his personal life and major historical events in order to demonstrate how fear has become an integral part of American culture, and thus appears relatable to his audience. He was confident and highly knowledgeable about his topic, which allowed his audience to understand and trust his arguments. My only criticism was that he lacked visuals to illustrate his point and was not particularly animated. However, all of his arguments and elaborations were extremely important to US foreign policy and domestic policy, and thus the daily lives of all Americans. Because his points are directly pertinent to his listeners, the audience pays full attention to what he describes. Generally, I found this presentation to be completely engrossing and well-delivered.
Juan Enriquez: What will humans look like in 100 years?
Enriquez asks philosophical questions that question human morality and values in order to grab his audience’s attention. Drawing from different fields such as biology, philosophy, physics, and history to illustrate his argument and provide examples in several concepts. The images employed during the information were highly developed, fascinating, and effective in adding value and understanding to the concepts Enriquez delivers. However, as a presenter, he was not particularly charismatic or passionate in the deliverance of his speech. In spite of this weakness, his topic was captivating and examples held his audience’s interests. He also discussed modification of the human body from the prosthetics of the past, to the plastic surgeries of the present, to the potential colonization of other planets in the future. By relating his topic to a variety of fields of study throughout time, Enriquez demonstrates the importance of his topic for all human existence.
Victor Rios: Help for kids the education system ignores
Rios emphasizes that students who are “at risk” should not be viewed as criminals and threats to society, but rather valued for what they have to contribute. He provides examples from his own difficult childhood to connect with his audience and relates it a broader subject. Rios was very animated and his tone was expressive, allowing him to captivate his audience. The images he employed were powerful, thought-provoking, and served to augment his arguments. He provided real solutions to real problems in the education system, and thereby inspires his audience to advocate for providing resources for these young people to become successful.
Ted talk #2
ReplyDeleteThe surprising habits of original thinkers
By: Adam Grant
Throughout this Ted talk, Grant discusses if original thinkers tend to be procrastinators or pre-crastinators. The overall conclusion that he seems to come to is that when people procrastinate, they think in a less linear form and actually come up with their most creative and original ideas. Grant then goes on to discuss how many great originals in history were procrastinators. For example, Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his famous "I have a dream" speech eleven minutes before performing, and to this day, it is still seen as one of the most influential and impactful speeches in history. Because the text was not set in stone, he ultimately had freedom to improvise. This ultimately allowed him to be an extremely influential and original individual. Overall I enjoyed this Ted talk, and I thought that Grant did a good job in engaging the audience.
TED Talks 5-8
ReplyDeleteSajay Samuel: How college loans exploit students for profit
In his presentation, Samuel explains how students become trapped by the debt they owe from loans to pay for college. Samuel applies specific examples to illustrate how devastating the student debt can become, and thus becomes more relatable to his audience. The visuals he employed provoked thought from his listeners while contributing to illustrating his own arguments. He forces the audience to re-evaluate ideas of education and the economy by describing diplomas as a brand, students as consumers, and education as a status symbol. Samuel’s hand gestures and expressive face maintained the attention of his listeners. Overall, I thought his presentation was very interesting, and pertinent to my own life as a student entering college with financial need.
Maria Bezaitis: Why we need strangeness
Bezaitis questions basic social norms and cultural activities to demonstrate that social media prevents people from becoming more informed about new ideas. Her voice is strong and conveys her intelligence to the rest of her listeners. Her topic was relevant to the daily lives to her listeners and thus captivates her audience. Although her images were simple, they contributed to her discussion and were highly informative. However, her speech lacked a clear conclusion and was sometimes a little too rhetorical. In spite of this, I enjoyed her presentation and found it to be highly informative in how social media shapes relationships.
Geena Rocero: Why I must come out
Rocero describes her story of how she worked to express her identity in spite of the societal norms of what is acceptable. She uses powerful images to demonstrate her journey to represent who she identifies as, and became completely relatable to the audience, as many people have some part of their identity that conflicts with the expectations of society. Her story was beautiful and inspiring, and although her situation was uncommon, her courage to accept who she is is a universal theme.
Munir Virani: Why I love vultures
Virani questions the attitudes people have towards vultures and thus engages his audience in thinking critically about cultural attitudes towards these animals. He was also very charismatic and engaging, employing humor and examples from both history and biology to explain his position. His images were vivid and informative, contributing greatly to his arguments and emphasizing his point to his audience. Virani’s face and tone were highly expressive, making him more engaging. Overall, I thought that his presentation was very valuable to helping the many endangered species of vultures and thus advocating for a more balanced ecological system.
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ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteTed talk #3
ReplyDelete8 secrets of success
By: Richard St. John
In this Ted talk, Richard St. John discusses what he believes are eight simple steps to becoming successful. He strongly emphasizes the importance of passion, and pursuing something that you love. His reasoning for this is that if you do something you love, the money comes anyway. Putting in the necessary work is also something that Richard encourages, due to the fact that work ultimately gives our life purpose. To be successful you must also put your nose down in something and be damn good at it. Naturally, we do not typically just become good at things, so if we continuously practice, we are able to make our goals more achievable. Lastly, it is important to always push yourself through self-doubt in order to be successful. There will always be negative thoughts that try to potentially hold you back from pursuing a career, but through self-confidence and the support of others, most goals are achievable. I really enjoyed this Ted talk and although it was relatively brief, Richard's points were spot on.
Ted talk #4
ReplyDeleteThe power of saying thank you
By: Laura Trice
In this Ted Talk, Laura Trice emphasizes the importance of saying thank you and being acknowledged for your contribution to something. She then goes on to encourage spouses to help one another as much as possible and always ask each other what they need to remove stress from their lives. Her personal belief is that through communication and appreciation with our loved ones, we will ultimately boost everyone's self-esteem and motivation to succeed. Although this Ted talk was rather brief, I thought Trice did an excellent job in capitalizing upon her own personal beliefs.
Ted talk #5
ReplyDeleteHow we'll find life on other planets
By: Aomawa Shields
In this Ted Talk, Aomawa Shields explains why she is certain that there must be life on other planets somewhere in the galaxy. One of her main arguments is that there are many factors besides a planets distance from a star that control factors such as life. She also brings up the valid point that a planet's atmosphere is crucial to its climate, and its potential to hold life. Overall, I thought Ms. Shields did a fantastic job in engaging the audience, however I am not sure that she provided enough data to fully support her argument.
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ReplyDeleteTed Talk #1
ReplyDeleteWhy you should talk to strangers by Kio Stark. Talking to stranger has a social meaning letting people know that you can see them. The problem with society is people have a fear of stranger and are taught not to talk to them. Instead of using fear of strangers you should use your senses when you talk to people. People are more open to strangers than to their close families because its a quick interaction and you wont see them again so its easier to be more open. you also don't have the expectations with strangers that they should know what you are thinking. This ted talk was interesting to know what other cultures do when talking to a stranger. She also tells you how to interact with a stranger on the street.
Victoria Martinez
ReplyDeleteDecember 18, 2016
Van Tuyl
TOK/Per. 2
Ted Talk #3: Arianna Huffington-How To Succeed? Get Sleep.
To be honest when I pushed play I had at least some high expectations for this video and I was greatly disappointed. She brought out in the beginning on how she met with doctors and scientists but she brought now hard evidence with it. She repeated on HOW getting sleep is important with just some assumptions things could’ve been different. Also, she kept on bringing up that “us strong independent women” have to stick together and that basically brought on here cheers. So, after that she kept on bring up how can strong independent women need sleep to be stronger and awesomer and blah blah blah blah. She was really annoying and and lacked the authority to even bring up this topic. DO NOT WATCH THIS!
Victoria Martinez
ReplyDeleteDecember 18, 2016
Van Tuyl
TOK/Per. 2
Ted Talk #4: Richard St. John-8 Secrets of Success
So, the guy said he’s been working on this ted talk for seven years! It started when a high school students asked him on the way to TED about what leads to success. When he got to TED he was in a room full of successful people so he asked them. After his seven years with 500 interviews he has this video.
1.Passion: You have to do for the love of something and eventually the money comes later.
2.Work: Nothing is easy so you do have to work. The thing is if you’re truly passionate of it then it’s fun. You basically love your work!
3.Focus: To be good at something and practice, practice, and practice! You have to focus all your energy into one thing.
4.Persistence: You have to persist through your failure and not have that waiver you to your path.
5.Serve: You have to serve others. You have to put something into society that people value and that’s how you get money.
6.Ideas: Creative can lead to new ideas and lead to entrepreneurial success!
7.Push: There will be time where you have self doubt so you have to push yourself mentally, emotionally, and physically. And if you think you can’t than that’s why we have mothers!
8.Pay $4,000 and come to TED: and that I really don’t get...
Ted talk #6
ReplyDeleteThe surprising way groups like ISIS stay in power
By: Benedetta Berti
In this Ted talk, Ms. Berti's primary discussion revolved around how to make the transition from violent engagement to non-violent confrontation. She emphasizes that we cannot understand groups such as ISIS, let alone defeat them, if we do not have the full picture. Armed groups also seek to win the population over by offering something that the state is not providing, which is typically safety and security. Ultimately, Ms. Berti brings to light that these groups such as ISIS, Hezbollah, and Hamas do demonstrate acts of violence, but also win over populations with social work such as setting up schools and hospitals and offering safety and security. All in all, I enjoyed this Ted talk but I felt that Ms. Berti was hard to follow at times.
Ted Talk 2
ReplyDeleteWhy you think you're right even if you are wrong by Julia Galef
This ted talk is about different mind sets and actions. One reason why we think are right is motivated reasoning which is trying to make some ideas win and others lose the drive to attack or defend ideas. She calls this soldier mindset. Another problem is that people will come up with wild stories to why they are correct. The second mind set is scout mindset is the drive to try and get an accurate picture of reality, even when it is unpleasant or inconvenient. The mindsets are connected to different emotions. This ted talk was ok to listen to she told it in a story to explain the different types of mindsets used in history.
Ted Talk #3
ReplyDeleteThis is what happens when you reply to a spam email by James Veitch
James Veich replied to a spam email about buying and selling gold which was a scam. He leads Solomon on in multiple different emails to mail gold and how they use each others money. To take the spam email even further he created a code he made Solomon email him back in code using ridiculous words like gummy bears, and peanut butter M&M's. With the multiple emails back and forth he just wasted the scammers time. This ted talk was very funny and enjoyable to watch. It was also fairly short.
Ted Talk #4
ReplyDeleteStereotypes by Katerina Vrana
Katerina Vrana is a comedian who will be talking about different types of stereotypes and why they are true. She begins with her Greek family background. She compares Europe to Grease. The British write angry worded letters if they are really mad compared to the Greek who get really loud and start yelling. When she auditioned for Greek and Mediterranean parts but most of the time got turned down because she doesn't look Greek enough, doesn't have the right skin color or right facial structures. This ted talk was very funny because she makes the country stereotypes little kids and yells out all their problems like they are preschoolers.
Ted talk #7
ReplyDeleteHow to raise a black son in America
By: Clint Smith
In this Ted talk, Clint Smith discusses the hardships of his childhood as an African-American and the same ones that his parents faced before him. At a young age, he did not understand why he was not allowed to do some of the same activities as his white friends, and felt as if he was almost stripped of some parts of his childhood. It was not until later that he realized why his parents had been so strict and cautious with him. They just wanted him to survive. In the current world we live in, racial profiling is undeniably present, and Smith's main goal is to be able to raise his son without stripping away the fun activities that he should be entitled to do without fear. Overall, I thought Smith was an excellent public speaker and did a phenomenal job in captivating me through his passion.
Ted talk #8
ReplyDeleteHow free is our freedom of press?
By: Trevor Timm
In this Ted talk, Trevor Timm describes how in the U.S, the press has a right to publish secret information that the public needs to know, which is protected by the first amendment. He then goes on to further discuss how government surveillance has made it more and more difficult for "whistleblowers" to expose and share information. In this concise, informative talk, Timm traces the recent history of government action against people who expose crime and injustice as well as advocates for technology that can help them do it relatively safely and anonymously. All in all, I found the topic of this Ted talk to be pretty interesting, however at some points it was certainly hard to follow.
Ted Talk #5
ReplyDeleteI'm 17 by Kate Simonds
This ted talk is about 17 year old girl who is talking about how any idea should be respected no mater how old you are. The only way teenagers can get respect by becoming a young millionaire or discovering a cure to some disease. Adults will tell teenagers you cant vote you don't understand politics or your voice is so small why do you try. The problem is social beliefs and traditions in society. Teenagers don't think strongly about their thoughts because their not adults and when teenagers have thoughts that they are outspoken about their ideas but are shot down by their peers. This ted talk was inspiring about solutions to the problems in the public school system, and that it was a 17 year old talking about what she believes in a ted talk.
Ted Talk #6
ReplyDeleteMy journey to yo-yo mastery by Black
Black is a yo-yo master and travels all around the preforming. He talked about when he was young he wasn't good at any sports so he took up the yo-yo and practiced and practiced till he won the yo-yo tournament at 18 years old. This ted talk was inspirational to keep doing what you like even if you aren't good at the beginning you can become good by practicing. Watching him do his yo-yo tricks was also amazing.
Ted Talk #7
ReplyDeleteA magical search for coincidence by Helder Guimaraes
Helder Guimaraes starts his ted talk by saying the majority of everything is always bad. He believes that this is true because people stop thinking halfway through. He also talks about how amazing coincidences happen all the time. People just need to look for the amazing coincidences. For one of his acts he has a man sign a one dollar bill, he than asks random people to shuffle different parts of the deck. he then asked for the first number on the serial code of the dollar bill and there was a 7 in a cup with the rest of the bar code after the dollar bill. This magic act was amazing and how he managed to include how he got into magic with a magic trick, and include how he thought about the world in multiple magic tricks.
Ted Talk #8
ReplyDeleteDraw your future by Patti Dobrowolski
People talk about dreams but never make the actions to complete their dreams. People have a 9/10 chance of completing their dream. People to complete a dream they must create a picture then train your brain. To start your dream you need to draw a picture because humans remember 65% better when they see a picture. Left side of brain critic and stops you from doing unreasonable things, the right side of the brain is the creative/ imaginative part. What you need to do to get to a dream is see it, believe it , act on it the left side of the brain will try and keep you where you are right now instead of moving to your dream. This ted talk is helpful to possibly fulfill your dreams instead of just have dreams.
Ted Talk #8
ReplyDeleteThe Genius of Multi-touch Interface Design - Jeff Han
This Ted Talk was really interesting because this man was trying to introduce a topic that didn't really surprise my in some ways, but in other ways, it was super futuristic. When it came to having two fingers on the screen at the same time, I was sitting stone-faced with no change in emotion, but I could hear the audience going crazy. It wasn't until he got into his more complex stuff that really started to surprise me. His idea about interface and you can use multiple different gestures to do different things is still barely even touched on in today's technology. That kind of thing is still what I would imagine seeing in the far future. Overall, pretty cool presentation!
Ted Talk #7
DeleteUnderwater Astonishments - David Gallo
This talk was short and to the point, gotta love it. The only problem is that i already wrote this response once, and it deleted itself, i'm gonna end it. Im not going to bed until I write at least 4 of these and having one get deleted on me is not helping my cause whatsoever. Now, onto the video. Basically he just wanted these people to show more appreciation towards the ocean while also making them laugh and having them enjoy themselves. Throughout the presentation, David pointed out a couple of fish that have the ability to change their skins shape, texture, and color in order to better adapt to their surroundings. It was actually pretty interesting because you just have to wander how these fish ended up evolving to have the genes they have today! How are they able to change color so fluidly? I have no idea!
Ted Talk #6
DeleteWii Remote Hacks - Johnny Lee
I thought that this talk was going to be mediocre, but he ended up pulling a fast one on me and showing the very beginning ideas behind VR technology, in 2008! It was especially cool because the ideas that he showed off seemed to even use a little of the tech that was shown in the last Ted Talk I watched. His ideas were very cool because they didn't just represent something that would be expected in the past, he showed his audience a concept that does not even truly exist today. The best example of this that is actually used today is the xboxs sensor thing, and it barely works. Oh well, someday all of this tech will become important, whether the new inventors stole it from these guys, or rethought the idea all over again.
Ted Talk #5
DeleteIs Pivot a Turning Point for Web Exploration - Gary Flake
In this talk, Gary showed us a cool new search engine that he has created that makes searching for information and entirely new system. He tries very hard to convince the audience of his technology, but I think its pretty obvious that this tech is not very cool. Honestly, I was not exactly impressed by the design and thought it looked way too much like an Apple design. and i don't like apples. I don't know, it looks like it wants to be fluid and fast, but i feel like you would only encounter problem after problem and solutions would be so much harder to deal with. I like the way we have it now because i'm not looking for "patterns" in my searches, im looking for the answer to the question I looked up. So, in short, NO THANKYOU!
Ted Talk #4
DeleteWe need Nuclear Power to Solve Climate Change - Joe Lassiter
I have to admit, this speaker was quite boring and I had a hard time listening to him. Also the title shows that he would be discussing nuclear power a lot, but he only really touches on the topic for the last 30 seconds. For the entire presentation, he really just talks about coal emissions around the world, and why they are what they are. He explains how coal has helped those in China and India in the past, and why they might not want to switch to alternate forms of energy today. Overall, the presentation was quite boring and repetitive especially after I realized that he wasn't talking about Nuclear power, and his monotone boring voice did not help me with staying awake and aware during his talk.
Ted Talk #3
DeleteHave we Reached the End of Physics - Harry Cliff
This guy seemed to talk about his topic as if it were amazing, but I almost felt like he talked about nonsense for most of the talk. Now, that might be because I don't understand this incredibly complex theory stuff. Either way, his presentation did have its high points and I can't deny that I did learn something new throughout the entire presentation. Like the fact that the higgs-boson is switched to just the right number so that our universe may exist. It is these kind of statistics that make one very happy that they can enjoy the life they life, knowing full well that if it were any different at all, nothing could exist. A fun thought to have when going to sleep at night, I love science.
Ted Talk #2
DeleteWhat the Discovery of Gravitational Waves Means - Allan Adams
The Cringe is real. This man started the presentation with a really bad black hole joke and the audience did not react at all. Instead of adjusting to this, he gave the joke around another 2 seconds to settle in, and no one laughed at all. I thought it would end there, but he went on to tell multiple terrible jokes, never receiving a laugh. I hate him so much for this, why can't he learn from his mistakes and stop telling jokes already? Oh well, his presentation was meh, and he based a lot off of very little so it was hard to follow if I even believed him in the first place.
Ted Talk #1
DeleteWhy are these 32 Symbols found in Europe - Genevieve von Petzinger
Finally a presenter that does not look like she wants the laughs, but she gets them anyways, that's how you do it. If you look like you want laughs, then you will not receive them. But if you are reserved and do not enjoy getting applause, then you will only get more, she knows this. Not only that but her presentation is actually pretty interesting. She talks of her adventures through various caves all over Europe, and what she found in them. She has concluded that there are only 32 symbols that range all across the land. 65% of which were used universally during the entire ice age, which I guess is very important. All together, she probably did better than a majority of the talkers that I have seen and I do appreciate her ability to add humor where required. Good job lady, goodnight VT im done now.
1. Kelli Jean Drinkwater: Enough with the fear of fat
ReplyDeleteIn a society obsessed with body image and marked by a fear of fat, Kelli Jean Drinkwater engages in radical body politics through art. Many people in society judge people based on their appearance, especially if they look out of the “social norm”. Fat people often receive most this judgement, being called names, made fun of, having people wonder if they eat too much, exercise, or try to become less fat. Kelli believes that living in this “fat” body does not make her any different or less beautiful. I admire Kelli’s self-love and confidence and it is very inspiring. She does not let what other people think about her influence her view of herself at all. Obesity has become a large problem in the U.S. over the years with the increase in production of unhealthy foods and lack of exercise. This TED talk may focus on the topic of being fat and the judgement these people receive, but I saw it more of a self-image and love type of talk. She encourages people no matter what to love yourself and your body and I think that as a person that is very important.
2. David Epstein: Are athletes really getting faster, better, stronger?
Epstein begins to compare Olympic results from many years ago like those of Jesse Ownes (1936) to those of Usain Bolt (2013). In the 100m Usain Bolt is faster by 14 steps. I became interested in this Ted Talk because instead of looking at the individual athlete competing Epstein is depicting the environment of the race. He compares the fabricated carpet and blocks to the ash of burnt wood that Owens ran on. When investigate, studies found that if Owens ran on the same materials of Bolt he would have been one step behind. I really enjoyed learning about this research because the present success of athletes is commonly compared to those of the past. The progression of athletic environments alters the results of the competition. Epstein provides solid evidence and research to prove his argument which makes the presentation interesting and believable. It was easy to follow and understand the information because of Epstein presentation skills and the language used.
3. Courtney Martin: The new America Dream
Even though the idea of the American Dream is that based around wealth, and overall success in society. The main base is said to be a universal health care system, and overall benefits for workers. Success was known to be leaving ones original home, in search of a better, and greater life outside. Realistically one main component needed for the American Dream which is not mentioned that much is the concept of creativity. Using creativity, one can simply excel in life with creativity, rather than just working in a cycle for most of our lives. Wealth is seen in riches, but is truly in the relationship between colleges and friends. Courtney Martin firmly states that the biggest danger in today, is achieving a dream that you may not believe in.
4. Nadia Lopez: Why open a school? To close a prison
This Ted Talk addressed the problems that result from lack of education for impoverished communities. The speaker, Nadia Lopez, created an elementary school in one of the worst neighborhoods in New York. When children are not going to school they do not have the ability to learn. This limits their future and creates a high risk of these children going into gangs and criminal activity. One student when asked what he would like to be doing in five years responded, "I don't know if I will live that long". Lopez wanted to replace the thought of a bad future with the new idea of college, and being a scientist, or a engineer, etc. The Ted Talk was very interesting because you could tell Lopez is passionate for what she does and what she believes in. The pictures and personal stories/statistics that she shared from her the school were engaging and helped support her argument. It was very inspiring overall and I think her message is important for the present generations and the future.
5. Charmian Gooch: Meet Global Corruption’s Hidden Players
ReplyDeleteCharmian Gooch is an anti-corruption campaigner who in 2014 was named on Bloomberg Markets’ 50 Most Influential list. When we imagine corruption it tends to be a minister or despot of a small overseas nation, living in fabulous luxury. Charmian lists a few perfect examples of this behavior. However, these people cannot operate without support from the rest of the world. Their mansions and art purchases are arranged through global banks, and despots in oil-rich nations must do deals with the largest oil companies. There were a lot of examples throughout this talk, and I struggled to find a take-away message from it. The main point was that corruption is everywhere – involving companies that are household names, and they are part of the corruption instigated by international despots.
6. Marco Tempest: A Cyber-magic Card Trick Like No Other
Marco Tempest is a Swiss magician based in New York City. He is known for his multimedia magic and use of interactive technology and computer graphics in his illusions and presentations. Marco introduces artificial reality glasses then shows us some card tricks from his point of view. He spins a fun tale as he deals the deck and reveals cards corresponding to the story he tells. As this happens, special effects explode from the cards and the computer voice acts as a foil – revealing probabilities and talking back to him. As for how he does it, I think the cards appearing in order are ‘real’, with the deck in order before he starts and the shuffles all a trick.
7. Jane McGonigal: The Game That Can Give You 10 Extra Years of Life
ReplyDeleteJane McGonigal is an American game designer and author who advocates the use of mobile and digital technology to channel positive attitudes and collaboration in a real-world context. Jane is a game developer and commonly hears it said that games are a waste of your life, and you’ll regret playing them when you die. She reviewed studies on the regrets of dying people heard by hospice workers. Jane promises a lot from her game. The activities at the end seem to be aimed at sick people – giving them a quest to achieve something. I can see this working – by focusing on small goals and victories that will improve their health it will help mentally. I don’t know if a healthy person will get a strong resilience benefit from the same activities, or whether those same traits can be developed by more advanced activities.
Nonetheless, it is fascinating to see that resilience can improve your perspective and length of life.
8. Ben Goldacre: Battling Bad Science
Ben Goldacre is a physician, academic and science writer. As of 2014 he is a Wellcome research fellow in epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and a founder of the AllTrials campaign to require open science practices in clinical trials. As an epidemiologist, Ben’s job is to use evidence and science to decide what is good for the body. Interesting to see how pharmaceuticals can abuse evidence by not publishing. I can understand commercial pressures not to publish negative results though, and not sure what the solution is. Should it be compulsory for companies to run trials through a central organisation and under specific rules? Even more concerning is the ethics of treating people with excessive or insufficient doses of a drug.
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ReplyDelete#6 Dena Simmons: How students of color confront imposter syndrome
ReplyDeleteIn this ted talk I love how Dena expresses herself and her story is very inspiring. She is one of many successful people in this country of color that break the stereotypes they are categorized in. She is a woman who went to boarding school and studied abroad in Chile and in New England, she has earned prestigious scholarships because of what she knows. Those people are who inspire me to be my best and to do my best because one day I will be telling my story to others and I will tell my inspiring story to someone else. I agree with her that other students of color should feel comfortable with being who they are and being who they are proud with no self doubt and accomplish their dreams just like everyone else born of this country color.
#7 Laura Vanderkam: How to gain control of your free time
In this TED talk I realized that we do have a lot of time in a day. We prioritize what we think is more important and we end up doing things that are not as important and then complain "I don't have time." She made me realize that all those new years resolutions in the beginning of the year that we make are not forgotten we simply just put it off and put it off because we have ore important things to do. Time is something that we have more of than we need. We have 168 hours in a week and we go to school at least 40 hours that means we have 128 hours left and we sleep at least 63 every week which leaves us with 65 hours left. What do you do that makes those 63 hours actually worth it?
#8 Michael Kimmel: why gender equality is good for everyone--men included
In this ted talk there is a man that starts talking about equality and how it is only categorized for woman and the equality of women. He realized that men are also sometimes put out of the picture. Honestly I didn't finish watching thenvideo because it was pretty boring and I didn't understand his jokes. But I get where he's coming from hat women are always the ones working for dustily wen men sometimes or might not have that same equality. I don't recommend this ted talk like I said its pretty boring and to me he's kinda like the guy that try too hard to be funny.
1.Lucianne Walkowicz: Let's not use Mars as a backup planet
ReplyDeleteHumans are a species poised on achieving the stars and losing the planet we live on known as earth.The amount of sun exposure tells of how habitable a planet is. In 2014, glaciers and sea ice are disappearing in a matter of decades. The more we look for planets like earth, the more we are able to appreciate our planet. Mars was once habitable but is no longer. Mars in comparison to earth is a very harsh place. Mars should not be seen as a backup planet for humanity once we destroy earth. We are so keen on finding other planets to inhabit that we neglect our own planet.
2.Jessica Ladd: The reporting system that sexual assault survivors want
A college student thought that being sexually assaulted at college parties was just how sex in college was supposed to feel like even though while he was in her all she could think of was that she wanted it to stop. One in Five college students are sexually assaulted every year. There is practically no deterrent to sexual assault in the united states. Sexual assault victims wish they could electronically report their assaults online in a safe environment, also being able to report an assault if they have the same assailant knowing that the same person went through the same experience where each person would be able to vouch for the other Could stop 59 percent perpetrators if repeat offenders are reported and legally punished.
3.Eman Mohammed: The courage to tell a hidden story
The male dominated field of photography made people refuse to train Eman. She received a death threat by being openly placed into an airstrike zone. Women are not allowed to receive or attempt any education. She was shunned and so was her family, bringing humiliation because of her trying to break societal norms and venture off into the working field. She wanted to full the full frame of palestinian life, she wants to see a different side of war and the aftermath. She chose to stand in her place and not run away from the struggles within the constraints of her society,
4.Matthew O'Reilly: “Am I dying?” The honest answer.
Impending doom is a symptom common in medical places. Medical professionals are faced with the dilemma of lying to the patient even though death is inevitable or to tell them the truth even though they may be scared. Matthew in his first year resorted to lying in fears they would die in terror. Then he decided to one day tell a motorcyclist that he would die when asked if death was coming. The motorcyclist lied down and took acceptance, waiting for death. He thought it was not his place to lie to the patience and every time they had the same reaction of peace and acceptance. When in the face of death, guilt is universal so they seek forgiveness before dying. The need for remembrance is common, they feel the need to be remembered by loved ones.
5.Clint Smith: The danger of silence
ReplyDeleteWe see the consequences of silence in our lives everyday. Everyone should tell their own truth and be honest while speaking up. The most valuable thing one can give up is their voice. Clint did not want to be a voice for anyone else. Validation should not be something spoken but rather spoken up for by oneself. Silence is the residue of fear, silence is what you hear of all the pain. There is no choice to pick your own battles when they are chosen for you. All anyone needs is their voice so that they can prevent bad happenings from occurring to others and should speak up to stop things from progressing into worse than what it already is.
6.Lee Cronin: Print your own medicine
Organic chemists make molecules by using reverse engineering. Are we able to make universal chemistry sets? They took 3D printers and printed the vessel and doing the chemistry at the same time they are on the brink of making universal chemistry sets. A universal set of inks, one downloads the blueprint for a specific molecule in the printer using the specific software. Ultimately this makes is possible to print your own medicine. This eliminates the need to go to the chemist. If a new superbug emerges then one can print the medicine without going to a chemist. Also one may be able to print one’s own medicine to suit personal needs.
7.Damon Horowitz: Philosophy in prison
When tony was 16 years old, he tooks his mom's gun and used it to steal someone's money then accidentally pulls the trigger and kills the person. Prisoners know what they did is wrong that is why they are in prison. What can counselors tell them what right and wrong is if when they are released they are always branded as doing wrong. This dispute over what is right or wrong immerses the prisoner what philosophy is and questioning what he already knows is wrong.
8.Arianna Huffington: How to succeed? Get more sleep
Sleep is essential, this was not realized for the speaker until she fainted from exhaustion and got multiple injuries. It leads to a more joyful like when one sleeps more. Women are going to lead the way in this new feminist issue by sleeping more. Men brag about having sleep deprivation. There is now a sleep deprivation one upmanship. The fact that they seem incredibly productive when really not by using sleep deprivation as an excuse is prevalent. More sleep will bring joy on a personal level and better one's life and how we perceive the world around us.
TED Talk #1
ReplyDelete“The Danger of Silence”- Clint Smith
I really enjoyed this TED talk. Clint is a teacher at a school that has a large population of under-privileged youth. This TED talk was actually a slam poem. The presentation and execution of the poem was very powerful and gave me chills. He spoke about the dangers of silence and how important our voice is. It discussed finding the courage to speak up against ignorance and injustice. He defended his students while also giving examples of everyday situations where being silent is hurting someone or us all. I enjoyed how he delivered the poem since it physically moved me but also enjoyed and appreciated the message of his poem. Too many people don’t use their voice to stand up for what they believe in so this TED talk really shows how that is dangerous.
TED Talk #2
“Are you human?”- Ze Frank
This TED talk was quite entertaining by Ze Frank. He has done many talks so he really appeals to audiences and people around the world. This talk was comedic but also eye opening. He asked a variety of questions to the audience about somewhat common occurrences that humans partake in. He had the audience raise their hand whenever the question applied to them. It was interesting to see how many people had actually done the same action but were too shy to admit it. He made sure to let the audience know that it was a safe place so they could answer honestly. Some questions were more serious while others were purely for laughs. It was interesting to see however how similar we all are despite different races, ages, genders and sexualities.
TED Talk #3
“What I discovered in New York City Trash”- Robin Nagle
Robin Nagle’s talk was about the trash in New York City but also about who cleans up after everyone. She studied the sanitation program in NYC and interviewed people in the job to learn about trash. She wasn’t getting the answers she wanted so she took a job as a sanitation worker. She learned lots about the workers themselves but also about the enormous tons of trash picked up each day. She gained respect for the sanitation profession. The sanitation workers take after us when we leave our trash which in cause leads to the bettering of all lives. They do their job no matter what when are too selfish or unknowing to pick up after ourselves. The sanitation workers go through their regular schedule so that we can go about our daily lives and schedules easily.
TED Talk #4
“Every kid needs a champion”- Rita Pierson
This TED talk stood out to me because I want to become an elementary school teacher when I am older. Rita has always been involved in schools and education. She discusses why students don’t learn or pass but also what is most important in academic success. She believes that human connection and relationships are what helps a student achieve in school. Students pay more attention to a teacher that they do like than a teacher that they hate. The education system is flawed in the way that they sometimes disregard this aspect of school and learning. Rita ingrained in her students that they deserve to be there and that deserve the education. The students then believed that they were capable to anything and that they could thrive and excel in academics and school. She also believes that school is for joy. I agree with this statement and hope to fulfill this in my own teaching career.
TED Talk #5
ReplyDelete“A glimpse of life on the road”- Kitra Cahana
Kitra is a photojournalist who follows vagabonds and hobos around the United States. She has always wanted to travel and wander and see the world so taking pictures of these people allow her to do so. Many of the vagabonds in her pictures are homeless because they want freedom. They don’t want the typical American dream or to partake in the consumerist and capitalist society that is America. I enjoyed this TED talk because it was interesting to see the different perspective on life that these vagabonds have. I also enjoyed Kitra’s photos of her friends while listening to her voice which was quite soothing and calm.
TED Talk #6
“How to raise a black son in America”- Clint Smith
This is one of my favorite TED talks I have ever seen. This is another one by Clint Smith so it was another spoken word/ slam poem. I really enjoy slam poetry in general so watching these always make me excited. This one discussed the difference in ways a black child and white child are raised. He described scenarios where he could not take part in a childhood activity because he could be seen as suspicious or threatening. The poem gave me chills once again and moved me to tears. His encounters with his parents teaching him how to behave in a way that white people don’t have to his eye opening. He said that the Black Lives Matter movement doesn’t mean that other lives don’t but that the fact that unarmed black people are being killed needs to be a priority. I loved this slam poem a lot and would highly recommend it to anyone.
TED Talk #7
“Your body is my canvas”- Alexa Meade
Alexa Meade was not my favorite presenter but the topic she was discussing was very interesting. Her style of presenting was kind of awkward and I felt like she was trying too hard to be dramatic. However, her art and her paintings were amazing. She decided that instead of painting people or portraits she would paint on the people and they would become their own portrait. She would paint brushstrokes onto a person and set them up in a background. This then created a 3D painting. She would then take a picture of the painted person in their background and it would become a 2D painting. It was really cool to see a unique approach at art and it amazed me how much it looked like a regular painting. I admire art in this sense that you can take a traditional technique and alter it slightly and create a whole other masterpiece.
TED Talk #8
“Before I die I want to…”- Candy Chang
I thoroughly enjoyed this TED talk. Candy Chang created the Before I die I want to… wall seen on many social media outlets. She created this wall after a close friend of hers died and wanted to do something in her memory after realizing how short life truly is. She put up chalkboard paint on a wall of an abandoned house in her community. By the next day the whole wall was filled with people’s aspirations and dreams. This brought joy and sadness to Candy’s life but helped her realize how positive and hopeful people are. The Before I die walls are now in countries all over the world. The wall lets people take a step back from their lives and reflect on what their true aspirations are while also recognizing death is okay. I recommend this TED talk to anyone who is interested in the story behind the wall or wondering about other people’s bucket list.
TED Talk #3: The coolest animal you know nothing about...and how we can save it by Patrícia Medici
ReplyDeleteIn this TED talk, conservation biologist Patricia Medici explains her lifetime's work in the study and protection of wild Brazilian tapirs. She emphasizes that this effort is not just for the benefit of one species, but for the health of the entire rain forest. Tapirs are herbivores who eat the fruit of indigenous trees and shrubs, and through their feces, disseminate the seeds of said plans, thereby helping to regenerate the plant growth of the forest through their eating habits. It is for this reason, states Medici, that the study and conservation of these mammals is vital. Medici's talk was compelling, although a bit repetitive of the talk of other conservationists though not unnecessarily so. Her personal experiences with this species gave the audience a more emotional connection to the subject that might otherwise be absent. Besides personal anecdote Medici's persuasive arguments were very well constructed. In drawing attention to the cuteness of baby tapirs, she appeals to emotions. In noting the integral role of tapirs within the larger ecosystem, she appeals to logic. In introducing herself as a scientist with 20 years of research experience she appeals to authority. Overall this video is entertaining and well put together. If for no other reason, watch it to see the baby tapir.
#1 the danger of silence : Clint smith
ReplyDeleteThis was a very powerful Ted talk by Clint smith. He talks about how silence is a result of fear. He gave an example, where he said, it was more important that he looked at his apple (phone) rather than give it to the homeless man, only to be looked, wishing he was human enough to. We use silence because we are scared of the unknown. He gives so many empowering examples of why we become silent at times where it's important to speak. I defenilty recommend watching this, found it very interesting how in my life I become silent, in times where my voice is needed. How everyone does that, and how silence becomes dangerous. I think it's very important to self reflect on yourself, something as small as this, with a little change can make a very big difference.
#2 my philosophy of a happy life : Sam berns
ReplyDeleteThis is such a motivating Ted talk! Sam berns has a very rare disease called Progeria and only about 300 people have it. It basically weakens the cells and demotes growth in muscle and bone structure. Geez just imaging having that, how much different your life would be. But what Sam talks about is how he used his rare condition to make his life happy. For many years he said he looked at the things he couldn't do and become sad about it. But as he got older he started to look at all the things he could do! He made goals and achieved many of them with the help of his loved ones, friends and family together. Sam wants to become a scientist, in the field of biology, he said he could care less what it is as long as it's in bio field. And even with his condition he doesn't look at his short comings but instead of his long comings and what he CAN do! I found this very motivational, and hope you do to if you watch it.
#3 why beleive they can't draw - and how to prove to them they can - Graham Shaw
ReplyDeleteThis was a pretty good Ted talk, not the best. He didn't go that in depth to why people beleive they can't, but sure helped many beleive they can draw ! As we are kids, every kid thinks they can draw, weather in ur option is horrid or acutely descent. But as we get older we get told we can't draw and puts us in a self conscious category in our ability to draw. Graham asked the audience who believes they can draw and not many raised their hands, in fact only about 5-10% raised theirs hands. Then he gave instructions to everyone, to draw a picture and at the end of the presentation, many people beleive they could draw, may not have been good, but they could draw. So if you don't think you can draw, this is a great Ted talk for you !
#4 Mathematics and Sex - Clio Crosswell
ReplyDeleteWell the reason i even clicked on this Ted talk was the title of it. I mean math and sex ? I mean pretty odd combination. So I clicked on it. Clio did a very well job, she did use many jokes and it kept the audience, including me, intrigued. She explained how mathematicians use math for everything ! From how much food a person eats, to men and women's hormones... And the equation for men's hormones is very very complicated, I mean takes up the whole slide complicated. She talked about the equations and variables in a good relationship, and made me wonder, where to even start with such an odd, and complicated looking equation! But it was not a boring presentations, like how many can be about math. I very much enjoyed this Ted talk.
1.Judson brewer ways to break a bad habit
ReplyDeleteJudson brewer discusses how to break a bad habit. As humans we are designed to find something like food, eat, feel good then repeat. He called this trigger act happy repeat. As we progress into a society that has commodities like cigarettes and cake, we over use these commodities resulting in being “fat and ugly” (Riley Flanagan). Judson believes that if we think and question why we are succumbing to the craving of smoking a cigarette or eating cake, we will realize what we are doing is horrible. Overall kind of boring speaker but interesting topic.
2. The secret u.s. Prisons you've never heard of before
Will potter in his ted talk goes into the basic human rights that us Americans should have. He then continues on, showing that those rights are completely violated with the use of cmu prisons (prisons for domestic terrorists). These prisons are run by the FBI and what they do is break almost everything America is built on. Potter had two examples where people were thrown in these jails because they had a political opinion that didn't conform to typical American beliefs. Potter states that we need to bring awareness on these prisons to make a change.
3. Why it's good to talk to strangers
Kim stark talks about why we should talk to strangers. Out of all the ted talks I have seen this has been far and away one of the most boring ones I have ever seen. Her stories were not really factual and completely anecdotal. It was hard to become interested in what she was saying, along with that she lacked the confidence to do well in her talk. Not a great experience would not recommend.
4.This is what happens when you reply to spam email
ReplyDeleteJames Veitch is a comedic genius. As a beautiful man with a lovely accent, he is extremely easy to watch. What he does is reply to spam emails in a hilarious fashion. He drags out conversations with people who create spam emails and that is it. He fuses stories together extremely well and captivates the audience. He is the perfect speaker.
5. The feat of unsubscribing
James veitch is a victim to stores putting him on mailing lists. The atrocities he has faced include unsubscribing then still getting an ad to go to a new store opening. Being fed up with the stores shenanigans he decides to email them back, and he will be bringing a bouncy castle. James is a stupendous speaker who keeps the entire audience laughing and entertained. The problem with his videos is that he doesn't go into depth about issues that deal with social economic or political issues but they are hilarious and worth watching.
6. Relationships are hard. Why?
Stan tatkin talks about relationships. He states that the root of all relationship problems is the assumption of one side believing they are right. While this is an interesting idea about how most relationships end, it was hard to follow because he was boring. He makes valid points that make sense but because this is a ted talk, there is a prerequisite to be semi interesting and he just was not really there. Okay talk but not great.
7.how to sound smart in your tedx-talk will Stephen
ReplyDeleteThis ted talk teaches one how to be a phenomenal public speaker that oozes intelligence. Will Stephen had it all. The statistics and numbers he presented were extremely eye opening to understand how to sound smart. There were tons of visuals to guide the way in his ted talk journey. He went over the appropriate body language and how to dress well for the occasion. His personal story is one to behold and I can safely say that he is one of the greats in the ted talk world. This video is definitely worth watching, a instant classic.
8. Reggie watts disorients you in the most entertaining way
I am at a loss. Reggie watts starts off speaking in at least 6 different languages. He then talks about something which I could not follow them proceeds to show the audience his singing and beat boxing abilities. He makes no sense when he talks. He shows the crowd three new pieces of music that is gibberish in rhythm. I am still not sure what this ted talk is about but I was definitely left disoriented like the title said I would be.
TED Talk 1 Q2
ReplyDeleteI did my first TED talk on what a driverless world would look like. The presenter, Wanis Kabbaj enjoys watching CD videos of cities from the sky. He equates all of the main roads and highways to living beings and the way our body works. He then states facts about how humans waste so much time in traffic and he presents an idea that would make it so much easier to be able to get around without traffic. He starts off by telling the audience that biology is just like the transportation business. Everything is moving in a well ordered, fluid motion throughout the body. He compares the blood circulating throughout our body to cars, except the blood does not stop at stoplights. He presents ideas like flying cars as well as self driving cars that are all computerized to never stop and will be able to move much quicker. Wanis claims that the future is now, and these crazy ideas will soon become a reality. I enjoyed this TED talk. The idea that people will be able to get to places much quicker without stopping is intriguing, but at the same time a little scary to see what the future holds.
TED talk2
ReplyDeleteI did my second TED talk of the seond quarter on a magical search for a coincedence. The presenter was by a portuguese man named Helder. He started off by talking about how 90 percent of everything is crap and then procedded to do magic tricks. I did not like this TED talk as there did not seem to be a valid reason why he was performing, other than to do magic. His tricks were actaully pretty good, but he did not sell anything to the audience and was not very appealing and catchy. He was very funny but he just did not explain a good reason to be there.
TED talk3
ReplyDeleteI did my third TED talk of the second quarter on what humans will look like in 100 years. Juan Enriquez performed this presentation and began with the discussion of prosthetics. He claims that prosthetics in the past were made to help a disabled person have “normal” human functions once again. Now people want prosthetics to be able to have super human abilities, like running faster or hearing from a greater distance. Juan claims that as time goes own, humans will have to adapt to the new life around them and this means that evolution is key. He also notifies the audience that more scientists are beginning to go deeper and remake there own body parts and have gone as far as reprogramming cells. I liked this presentation. It gave an inside look at what the future could hold for humans as soon as the next century!
TED talk 4
ReplyDeleteI did my fourth TED talk on how our brains are wired to solve. The presenter was the creator of the New York Times crossword puzzle named David Kwong. He wanted to show the audience how his two obsessions: puzzles and magic come together in a ten minute period. He gave evidence to show how our brain is wired to making order out of chaos and he did this by having a pre drawn picture of some animals and put it in a envelope. He than asked a member of the audience to choose the colors. It was complicated but made sense in the end when he showed how these animals had been colored. I enjoyed this presentation because it showed how David could actually make the volunteer pick exactly what he had previously shown.
TED talk 5
ReplyDeleteI did my fifth TED talk of the second quarter on Extreme Wing suit Flying. The presenter was a man named Ueli and started off describing the progression of the different types of dives that he has performed and then went on to describe how crazy they get. A few of the crazy jumps include jumping off a moving truck as well as sliding off the side of a hot air ballon. Ueli is truly most passionate about Extreme Wing suit Flying because it is the closest a human can get to actually flying. He is very determined to set the record for the longest distance flown in Wing suit Flying, and he says that his sport takes a ton of practice both physically and mentally. I enjoyed this presentation because Ueli described his extreme passion which was enjoyable for the viewer to get a unique perspective of how much Ueli enjoys his craft.
TED talk 6
ReplyDeleteI did my sixth TED Talk of the second quarter on Are athletes really getting bigger, faster, and stronger by David Epstein. This was a great talk about how athletes really are not too much different from those of the previous decades. David showed evidence to prove that the technology was changing such as more advanced tracks and more advanced bikes in particular. Sure, athletes are eating healthier and have strict weight training schedules, but in reality athletes are not really too much different from the ones of the previous generations. Our advancement in technology has led us to gain knowledge about every facet of sports and the athletes that perform in them.
TED Talk 7
ReplyDeleteI did my seventh TED Talk of the second quarter on the science of baseball. In this TED talk, the presenter attempts to engage the audience on the science of baseball and how it can be effectively used in elementary school class rooms to make learning easier. One of the examples the speaker presented the audience with, was the use of the Pythagorean theorem. The distance from first to home is 90 feet and the same is true from home to first. By knowing this information, the student is able to know that the distance from home to second is approximately 127 feet. The presenter has shared his concepts with teachers around the globe. I enjoyed this presentation because it gave me an insight and a different view of how to learn in school using real life situations.
TED TALK 8
ReplyDeleteI did my last TED TALK of the second quarter on a presentation by now New England Patriots Tight End Martellus Bennett. He starts of by describing the way that black are perceived in society. Everyone thinks they are all athletes. But no one thinks they are creators. He claims that everyone is an athlete and everyone is a creator. Martellus does not think he gets the credit he deserves when it comes to being a creator. He says that he plays football because he has to, and he writes children's books because he has to. It was a great TED TALK that was also very hilarious. I enjoyed the talk because of the humor as well as the message that goes along with it.
1. Anjali Tripathi: Why Earth may someday look like Mars
ReplyDeleteThis talk seemed very intelligent, however it was not very easy to make the connection on how Earth will become Mars someday until the end. She talked more about the idea of Hydrogen loss in out atmosphere along with Helium. I thought she presented well but she was monotone throughout the whole talk which made it hard to stay intrigued in the talk. Not only this, but she was very repetitive with the whole continuous loss of Hydrogen and Helium which also made it hard to stay intrigued, however she did seem very smart, I'll give her that.
2. Laura Vanderkam: How to gain control of your free time
While watching this talk, I noticed that all of her examples and studies were all on women, however when she talked about her studies she talk about people as male included. I found this very interesting. The talk itself though was very well presented. She kept me intrigued and made a lot of very good points that I had never thought of. One line that I found of interest during her talk was the idea that if someone says that they do not have time to do something, then it is not a priority. She is right when she says that we can manage our time however we want, its just that we prioritize the things we want to do. She stated that some of the busiest people in the world are also those with the most free time.
3.Harald Haas: Forget Wi-Fi. Meet the new Li-Fi Internet
During Harald Hass's presentation, it was not really hard but rather tough to comprehend what he was saying because he had a thick accent. He had to talk slowly because of it, but other than this he presented very well. Also, his idea and product seemed very interesting in how it works. I was confused on how he was able to transfer a video in LED light and how the whole Li-Fi works. I thought the whole presentation was really cool though, especially since he was able to display the process instead of just talking out how it works.
4.Sally Kohn: Don't like clickbait? Don't click
I chose to watch this video because I have noticed that different people get different clickbait. Most of the time, I wonder how it is possible that the ads that show up on different websites are the same stuff either I am looking to buy or am just interested in. She talks about how algorithms are used to choose what ads to display to which users. I notice this on my own computer, because the ads I usually get and the ads I get after my mom uses my computer are very different. She also goes off topic in the beginning which confused me on what she was even talking about, but she does talk for a few minutes directly about this, which I found very interesting.
Ted Talk #1- Underater Astonishments by David Gallo
ReplyDeleteThis talk was very interesting because he Talk all about the amazing underwater creatures that live in our oceans. He also pointed out that we've only discovered 3% of the entire ocean. Which is absolutely amazing to think about because we've already learned so much and have even scratched the surface of the other 97%.
Ted Talk #2- Unveiling game changing wearable tech by Pattie Maes
ReplyDeleteIn this Talk Pattie went over an incredible new piece of technology that basically allows us to have a sixth sense. It's a device that goes around your neck and it has a small camera on it that portrays an image out in front of you. And you can actually reach your hands out and move the images and do whatever you want with them. Also if you're holding any item, the device will recognize it and give u a rating on it and other information telling whether it's optimal to buy or not.
5. Christopher Emdin: Teach teachers how to create magic
ReplyDeleteI thought Edmin's whole idea of how as students we need to be more engaged, but it is not only at the fault of the students but also the teachers. As teachers, they need to be more interactive within the community. He describes how people are often more engaged in places such as barbershops, churches, and rap shows. Not only because the audience is engaging but also the fact that the rapper or barber or the pastor is entertaining. The way they hold themselves, the way they move and interact with the people surrounding keeps the people engaged. He talks about how our teachers need to hold themselves accountable for keeping the students engaged, but they need to be engaging themselves first. I thought he did a very good job presenting and kept me intrigued the whole time.
6. Alex Kipman: A futuristic vision of the age of holograms
This idea of a futuristic vision of the age of holograms is really trippy to think about. The idea that in the future people will be living in this virtual reality world with the help of holograms seems like it is not possible. However, with this holographic lens that he wears it is possible, but it takes a lot of pre mapping to do so. I thought the whole presentation was very unique and he did a very good job presenting his talk especially with the transfer from his view to the audience and the use of Jeff, his virtual buddy across the street was really cool. I do not know though whether this technology will be relevant in the future, because in this virtual reality we still do not have any senses despite sight, which would be very weird to use without touch and smell and all the senses.
7. Thomas Suarez: A 12-year-old app developer
I chose to watch this video because this 12 year old kid is an app developer. This seemed very cool to me, because you rarely see kids at such a young age develop such programs and apps, instead they are at school learning about common subjects not like programming. Thomas Suarez has already developed two apps available on the app store and is now working with a third party group in which he is developing another app. I think he did an amazing job presenting his talk as a 12 year old, most 12 year old kids I know are shy to talk to even a few people let alone a Ted Talk audience. He makes app programming seem so easy, which makes me think if a 12 year old can do this, than why can't everyone else be able to.
8. Anthony Goldbloom: The jobs we'll lose to machines -- and the ones we won't
This idea is very interesting and true, a lot of machines will be able to outperform humans in many areas of the job world. Which in return will take take jobs away from humans. However as Anthony Goldbloom is right in the fact that machines cannot perform a task that it has not already seen, in order for a machine to perform at a task as that of a human, it needs a massive amount of previous data to set an algorithm that fits the task. There will be many jobs that machines cannot take from humans because they do no hold the capability to react to new situations as a human would be able to do so. This idea is hard to take in, but it is also the truth and we already see this idea taking place everyday, where a machine is taking the place of a human because it can outperform a human with lower cost management.
Ted Talk #3- Inside the mind of a master procrastinator by Tim Urban
ReplyDeleteWhen I was looking through Ted talks to watch I saw this one and decided to watch it because I thought I could easily relate. And I can. Tim Urban went over graphs that he had come up with that showed the amount of work being done vs the time until the deadline. He showed a procrastinators version and also a non procrastinators version of the graph. And they were very different. Urban also told a story about how he was assigned a 90 page thesis paper that was to be done throughout the year, which he ended up doing the last three days and pulling 2 all nighters. And while I was watching this I thought to myself "I should probably start my essay." But anyways it was a super interesting video and kinda funny as well. I definitely recommend you watch this one.
Ted Talk #4- A simple way to break a bad habit by Judson Brewer
ReplyDeleteThis Ted Talk was sort of interesting in a way but it was also kind of boring and I couldn't really stay super engaged in it. Brewer talked about how he had found a way to break bad habits easily and actually stay true to it. As an example he took a regular smoker and had her do some tests. He told her to really concentrate on her breathing and the taste of the cigarette and when she was doing that she ended up hating it and saying that it was disgusting. So when you're actually really focusing on what you're doing instead of just going through the motions because you're addicted and everyone else is doing it, you realize that it's pretty gross and totally not good for you. And even after this she found that she was becoming less engaged with smoking.
Ted Talk #5- How to speak so that people will want to listen by Julian Treasure
ReplyDeleteIn this Talk, Julian Treasure talks about why sometimes people tend to not listen when you're talking and how to talk in order for them to want to listen. He starts off with a few reasons why people don't listen when you talk. A few of them are negativity, over-exaggeration, lying, etc. No one wants to listen to somebody if they're talking with any of these. However, something that people do like in a voice is when it's deep. For instance when people are voting for someone in a certain position they tend to pick the person with a deeper voice because we affiliate it with power. So I definitely learned some thing watching this Ted Talk and would recommend that you give it a look
Ted Talk #6- This is what happens when you reply to spam emails by James Veitch
ReplyDeleteI didn't really learn anything new or interesting while watching this Ted Talk but I did have a laugh. Veitch showed a conversation he had with someone who had sent him a spam email and it was absolutely hilarious. I really suggest that you watch this video because even though it was not that informative, it was one of the best Ted Talks I have seen.
Ted Talk #6- Why you should talk to strangers by Kio Stark
ReplyDeleteStark explains all the things that you can get out of talking with strangers. She believes that if you don't, you could miss wonderful things like spontaneous connections that could possibly make your day. She also goes into why it is that we teach our kids to stay away from strangers even when most strangers are actually friendly people. After watching this I think I might socialize with some people who I don't know or just be a little more friendly because you never know what you can get out of it.
1. Ken Jennings: Watson, Jeopardy, and Me, the Obsolete know-it-all
ReplyDeleteThis Ted Talk centers around Ken Jennings experience on a jeopardy show against the robot, Watson, and how this experience connects to AI in our society. He questions the value in artificial intelligence through the lense of it taking over human jobs in our society. He analyzes computers as unable to think creatively as a human can, supported by his victory over the robot on the game show. He also explores the value in sharing knowledge through social interactions and the skills people develop through their professional jobs. I think he is right in the sense of the value of social interactions and sharing knowledge, however I do think there is significant value in machines being able to replace people in labor jobs. This would result in displacement of people from their jobs, but may lead to a push for people to strive for education and jobs that contribute to society on a more significant level compared to a labor job.
2. Chris McKnett: The Investment logic for Sustainability
ReplyDeleteChris McKnett explores the developing facet of economics of investment in sustainability. He proves that sustainable investments are easy as well as high performing and beneficial to a developing world. An aspect investors forget to take into consideration is the impact of sustainability issues on the environment. The depletion of natural resources and increase in pollution and population have lead to a shift in supply availability and demand in the economy, creating environmental issues to be directly correlated with the economy. He defines sustainability investment logic to be ESG— social, environmental, and governance issues. I completely agree that investors need to be investing in sustainability because of the dire resource and climate issues we will face in the near future.
3. Jane McGonial: The game that can give you 10 extra years of life
ReplyDeleteJane McGonial presents the concept that the use of mobile and digital technology can channel positive attitudes and collaboration in a real world context. She is a game developer and contests the claim that games are a waste of life. She recounts the dying wishes of those in hospice in order to support her counterclaim that games may increase happiness and well-being, therefore not being a waste of time. I believe that artificial games are a sense of false happiness and don't lead to fulfillment because of the lack of connection they have to the real world. Social interactions and impacts you make in the real world are what lead to happiness and fulfillment.
4. Ben Goldace: Battling Bad Science
ReplyDeleteBen Goldace explores the issues of inaccurate scientific claims in our society and the propagation they may get due to false advertising. He talks about the contradiction false science can have with real science and how this can lead to misinformed people, creating a misinformed society. An example of this is the invalid claim that vaccines can cause autism that rapidly spread, causing an epidemic of parents not vaccinating their children due to false information and consequently children dying from preventable diseases. In this sense, the social media platform we have created is dangerous because of false information that can be spread so quickly and believed even faster.
5. Tali Sharot: The Optimism Bias
ReplyDeleteIn this talk, the concept of optimism is explored. A cognitive neuroscience pyschologist analyzed the benefits of optimism, as well as the implications of it and the regions of the brain that control optimism and reason. She conducted a study with cancer patients that revealed which areas of the brain control these things. She questions whether turning off the optimistic part in your brain is good or bad because it would allow one to be more realistic when making decisions. I do not think this is of value because optimism is honestly what gets you through life and having a positive outlook or belief in something is really important to happiness.
6. Shawn Achor: The Happy Secret to Better Work
ReplyDeleteShawn Achor, the CEO of Good Think, Inc., discusses his research about positive pyschology. He disputes the claim that people who are successful will be happy. When you achieve success, you shift your goals further, therefore are never fulfilled or happy with what you do. He says that you can rewire your brain to think positively in 21 days by writing down what you are grateful for, performing random acts of kindness, and meditating to clear your mind. I completely agree with this and believe there is a great value in thinking positively. When you focus on why you are grateful for what you do have, you begin to focus less on what you do not have. Being kind and having a positive impact in other's lives is more fulfilling than anything. Taking time for yourself to reflect and clear your mind is important in being able to appreciate the place you are.
7. Barbara Oakley: Learning how to Learn
ReplyDeleteBarbara looks into the neuroscience aspect of rewiring your brain to be adept at other concepts after she became good at math with a history of doing well with English content. She discusses that procrastination is one of the most significant aspects that inhibits learning. Procrastination is our brain's fear of experiencing pain at something we don't want to do or will struggle at doing. It is an important barrier to work past to train your brain how to expand and learn something you may not have understand before. Practicing making yourself sit down and do the task you are procrastinating for for 25 minutes and then giving yourself a five minute break, you will train your brain to push through tasks and the reward that will occur after this. This is valuable for me because it is something i have always known to be an inhibitor, but now i've really been confronted with a way to break this habit and the benefit of doing so.
8. Philip Zimbardo: The Demise of Guys
ReplyDeletePhilip discusses the modern day man and how he has been declining in comparison to women and men of the past. He blames this on video games and pornography. He believes that because of the incescent exposure of these two things that have integrated into the lives of men, they are being trained to have and "arousal addiction." They are beginning to lack the capacity to hold sustainable relationships with women, with another result being a decline in educational success. I think this is really amusing because the common day man is finally being called out for his decline of his ability to be a gentleman-- by a man! I just think that's great and is something to look at as modern expectations for men become lower and lower, resulting in less respectful and productive people in our society.
#8 -
ReplyDeleteThe real importance of sports | Sean Adams | TED
Sean Adams talks about sports and their over looked importance of teaching life long lessons. He touches in on the idea that sports teach young boys many things that absent fathers would teach them if they were involved in their lives. Many young boys don't get to experience the knowledge that their father offers about life lessons and things they teach but sports allows many of those boys to fill the void. It teaches camaraderie and dedication to work towards a common goal in order to succeed. Sports aren't just for fun but they teach lessons that many boys need because they are not taught in their homes.
1. Chinaka Hodge - What will you tell your daughters about 2016?
ReplyDeleteIn this TED talk, Chinaka Hodge talk of how this year was not a good year for women. It was not a good year for women, not just in the United Staes , but all around the world. In particular it was not a good year for woman of the LGBTQ+ community, since earlier this year, there was a mass shooting in Orlando florida, where a man killed over 50 people. some of those people were woman. She also states how we have to tell our daughters of the future of the fact that this year, a year where there should.t be no more discrimination on their gender, but there still is. But what we have to tell our future daughters is this, that they do not have to be docile. They do not have to settle at the age of thirty five with a mate. We need to tell them that they are validated and loved and that their gender matters.
2. Lee Mokobe - A powerful poem about what it feels to be like a transgender
ReplyDeletePoet Lee Mokobe, a person who is very familiarized with these talks, states in this tear jerking poem about her exploration of their identity and transition. In this talk they talk about the thoughtful reflection on their body and what their body means to them now. As a child, when their mother said what do you want to be, she said, that he wanted to be a boy. And that they were shamed for wanting to be a gender that he was not assigned to at both. In the poem he states that he wasn't ashamed of being a girl and that it wasn't a phase. He just wanted to be what he felt he rightfully was. A boy.
#5 Keep your goals to yourself : Derek Sivers
ReplyDeleteThis was a pretty good Ted talk! He put up stats explaining how people who keep their goals to themselves have a higher chance to achieve them than those who tell others. It really put things in perspective for me, because I do find myself telling my mom, maybe a goal that I have and then sort of not doing it to the best of my ability. But when I keep it to myself and put my head down and drive towards it, I feel I have completed it to the best of my ability, and maybe possibly even more room for improvement . Derek severs explains how, when you tell somewhat about the goal, your mind sort of tells you that it's almost complete, just because you verbally tell someone. So a lesson I learn from this Ted talk is the importance of keeping my goals to myself.
3. Jamila Lyiscott - 3 ways to speak English
ReplyDeleteJamila Lyiscott feels that she knows three different types of ways to speak one language. This language is English. She states that she is a tri-tongued orator. In her powerful poem "Broken English", she talks about the challenges she had faced not only in her work life, but in her social life to. She faces challenges with her three distinct styles of English. She says like most of us, she speaks differently around her friends and in the classroom. She claims she is articulate with each version she speaks. And the way she speaks doesn't interfere with how educated she is.
#6 How to speak so that people want to listen : Julian Treasure
ReplyDeleteI recommend this Ted talk to everyone. I beleive many people can learn something valuable from this Ted talk. Defenitly left me self reflecting on how I speak to others at school, home, strangers anywhere, etc. Julian Treausre goes over reasons that drive people away from your conversations, such as gossip, talking about yourself... A lot, and a couple others, and then explains ways we can intrigue people into actually wanting to talk to us. I really enjoyed what Julian Treasure had to say and learned a lot by it.
4. Geena Rocero - why I must come out
ReplyDeleteGeena Rocero is a transgender model, she talks about her struggle accepting herself being transgender. And she also talks about how she felt that she needed to "come out" out the world on who she really was before and how that doesn't change who she is now. She felt that she needed to come out for the sake of those trans teens or kids that they are not alone. She states how gender has always been a fact. A fact that was uncuttable to everyone, but now we all know it could be more fluid and relaxed. She started her transition at 15, where she would find comfort in joining pageants. And thats where she found her community and her friends.
#7 Video games are f*** awesome : Eric Jordan
ReplyDeleteThis was a good Ted talk I thought ! I really enjoy playing video games, a sold Madden, 2k, and the occasional zombs here and there. What Eric talked about is the typical stereotype towards video games and those who play it, And how wrong they were. He said more adult women play video games than teenage boys, which I thought was pretty funny. He also stated something that I came to a realization was true about me as well. He said that gamers don't substitute video games for a walk or something active, and I was like, true true, then he said they substitute it with watching tv, and I was like... Woah that's so true cause I never watch tv, I rather play football, then watch it... Something about keeping your brain active is a good way to excersize it ! I thought this was a good Ted talk !
#8 The benefits of good posture : Murat Dalkilnc
ReplyDeleteI thought this was pretty insightful and helpful for me, because of my small scoliosis and back problems that I have had. In this Ted talk, it talks about what your posture tells others about yourself. We have all been told to sit up straight at the dinner table, that is because we become more presentable to others, when we have our backs straight, head up and shoulders back. In the Ted talk it gives tips on how to slowly progress to having a good posture, whether it be casually or when you want it. Because of my back problems I have had bad posture growing up and been constantly trying to fix it. Watching this Ted talk informed me on a lot I did not know before.
5. Kelli Jean Drinkwater
ReplyDeleteIn a society obsessed with body image and marked by a fear of fat, Kelli Jean Drinkwater engages in radical body politics through art. She confronts the public's perception of bigger bodies by bringing them into spaces that were once off limits from fashion runways to the Sydney Festival and entices all of us to look again and rethink our way of the word "fat". She says that we all have a form of fat-phobia, she says that we live a culture in which being fat means that we are , lazy, greedy, dirty and disgusting. We blame fat people for the whole phobia against fat people. She says that she realized that she was too fat to be in things like ballet like the other little girls, so she decided to start accepting herself at the age six so she claims everyone should be unapologetic for being fat.
6. Nadia Lopez - Why open a school? To close a prison.
ReplyDeleteOur kids are our future, and it's crucial they and we believe it ourselves. That's why Nadia Lopez opened an academic oasis in Brownsville, Brooklyn, one of the most underserved and violent neighborhoods in New York, because she believes in every child's brilliance and capabilities that she feels could help not only the children but their families and cites. She claims that the more we help children get off the streets the more they will succeed in their daily life. Also she says that the more connected she is with her students the more trust they have on her and the rest of the staff at her school.
1) A story about knots and surgeons by Ed Gavagan
ReplyDeleteEd Gavagan talks about his personal experience with surgery which he begins to reminisce when a subway incident reminds him of his past. A group of college students at the subway were forming knots to help them prepare for a lecture that was about to happen. They are medical students that were studying to become surgeons and the knots prepared them for simulation that they had to do after the lecture. They begin talking about surgery and doing the knots when Ed Gavagan remembers his encounter with surgeons. When he was younger and owned a bar, a group of 3 males came and jumped him in the middle of the alley. One of them stabbed him three times (1 in the abdomen, one in the neck and the other on his back). He blacked out and fell, he then was found by the ambulance and rushed to the trauma room. The surgeons operated on him although he had about a 2% chance of surviving because of the amount of blood he had lost. He ended up living and has many scars in his abdomen area. Thinking about this in the subway, he wanted to tell the surgeons about his past and let them know how big of a deal their future occupation is. However, it was his stop and he had to leave. This story was told with much emotions and power on his part. He was on the verge of tears several times during his presentation. This makes me value life and is a little bit of a wake up call on what can happen in just a second of what seems like a normal day.
2) Why you should talk to strangers by Kio Stark
Kio Stark documented for 7 years her experience to talking to strangers and she says it is amazing. We often say the basic things such as “hello” “good morning,” but this is more of an acknowledgment of seeing that individual. However, when it comes to the extent of communicating further and having a conversation with a stranger we are reluctant because of the idea that has been drilled to our brains ever since we were young- which is that stranger = danger. This is because we do not know the context of that individual, we do not know their motives so we automatically assume the worst. The benefit we gain from talking to strangers is liberation. If we stop categorizing people as a whole and look at individuals we are liberated- free to see things without a preconceived notion. It is also scientifically proven that people feel more open and comfortable with telling information to strangers rather than friends and family members. This can be due to the fact that because we know very little about a stranger then there is little possibility of judgement. It can also be because we know our friend and family members and we know that they are bias about a situation or person so disclosing something with a complete stranger eliminates that and allows a new perspective. In general there is some good in talking to strangers and eliminating that judgement, however our society depicts it as a thing that is dangerous. This presentation was interesting, I think it still is dangerous to speak to strangers, but it is beneficial to an extent because of all the stories and interesting experiences that can potentially occur.
3)Can you really tell if a kid is lying? By Kang Lee
ReplyDeleteLying is created using two “ingredients” as Mr. Lee explains in a research he conducts. The first ingredient is mind reading which means that someone has to be able to read an individual’s mind and know what they know in order to not know what they do not know so the lies are believable. Another factor is self control. In the research what Lee discovered is that those who were more advanced in mind reading and self control had more convincing lies. The interesting aspect is that those two traits are beneficial to all of us humans, we need self control and mind reading. Failure to develop in children results in autism or ADHD so lying is a milestone in an individual’s growth. The age kids begin to lie is around 2 and the rate of individuals who lie increases as their age does so. It is very difficult to tell if that individual is lying, but there is a fluctuation in their pulse and body heat which is unnoticeable to the naked individual. There is a machine created which shows the change in individuals fine facial features when lying. This can also be used to see how people react to things and it would be interesting to see how that turns out. I think it's very invasive to do so, the lie- detector can be used for criminals, however when it comes to an average human, I don’t think that is a good idea. Although it is interesting to see how advanced our technology has gotten.
4)The Simple Cure for Loneliness by Baya Voce
Baya Voce suffered from loneliness at a young age as many adults do. About 1 in 5 adults suffer from loneliness and the reason is because we are so focused on creating a life on social medias or on the internet that we lose reality and physical human connection. Baya wanted to become famous and so she went on a reality show thinking that was her answer to her loneliness, but it did the opposite of what she thought it would do. So she quit the reality show and decided to study human connection and realized for us to not feel loneliness we need to feel “seen, heard and valued.” For these things to take place we need to have an “anchor of connection” as in we need to build a way for us to be connected and make it a ritual. Once we are ritualistic and make it a priority to connect with family and friends then we are curing loneliness. I did not think this was anything new and does not necessarily need a team of researchers to discover this because it is common sense for the most part, however I did think she presented it in an interesting manner. She was very hyper and very interesting so it was overall a good presentation that allows one to reconsider what they know and go back to basics.
5)This is what happens when you reply to spam email by James Veitch
ReplyDeleteThis has to be one of the best ted talks I have EVER seen. It was hilarious, not very informative, but it was hilarious. James Veitch responded to a spam email that was suggesting that they transport 25 kgs of gold, but he would have to give about 1,200 pounds (money). It was hilarious the methods “Solomon” who was the person that was messaging James to give him the money for the gold. Another spam email asked for a few hundred dollars to help Nelson Mandela’s health condition. It was a person pretending to be Nelson’s second wife and emailed James asking for the donation. Of course Nelson Mandela is dead and had been for 3 months by the time James Veitch saw the email so he responded to the “second wife” stating that. It was funny the conversations that they had and I am contemplating on responding to spam emails, but I would probably do it with a fake account for privacy reasons.
6)The agony of trying to unsubscribe by James Veitch
I really enjoyed his other video about spam emails so I decided to watch this one and it was also really funny, along with it having a little bit more meaning. There was a store that was opening up so it was sending spam emails on the countdown of the opening. For privacy reasons James titles the store “safemart” and showed the conversation between a guy by the name of Dan and him. James tried to unsubscribe the first time he was emailed, but it did not really work and he continuously got the email. James decided to respond pretending like he was setting up a little party for the opening of the store and the conversation the two had back and forth was super hilarious. The message of the ted talk is trying to make the best or make meaning out of the simplest and unpleasant scenarios. This is of course a cleshay saying, but he explained it in a hilarious manner that it was entertaining to watch. At one point Dan stopped replying and there was an automatic message that was sent stating “thanks for your email- your case number is #1682988.” This continued to happen every time James sent Dan a message, so James decided to create an automatic reply that would send Dan the same automatic message every time he received an email. So the emails were being sent back and forth to each other as one side sent an automatic email the other received it responded with another automatic email and so on. It resulted in over 21,000 emails being sent until James realized it (because he ended up forgetting about it at one point). Making the best of the situation you are given is such an important task to make a priority, it does not necessarily mean that it has to be to the extreme that James decided to do, but it is still a very important advice that would make life better.
7) Looks aren't everything. Believe me, I'm a model by Cameron Russell
ReplyDeleteAs stated in the title Cameron Russell is a model who talks about perceptions due to how someone looks and she falsifies everything we are told about being a model. She says she has a lot of insecurities being a model in the industry and that it is not as great as many make it seem. She has felt it in her life that she was given a lot or had a lot of benefits because of her looks. During a time that she was pulled over for driving past a red light she was allowed to go on and be forgiven because she was pretty. When she forgot her money in a clothing store she was allowed to take the dress anyway because she is famous. She is judged due to her external look and because of that her personality and actual self is overlooked. Even though it seems amazing that she is so lucky in every sense, but the biggest truth is that this situation occurs on other scales that is not always beneficiary. People are judged on their looks all the time such as being too fat, many automatically come to a conclusion that “it's probably because they eat so much and if they did not eat so much they would look better.” They could suffer from a serious problem that is deeper than manys shallow comment. Or that black males are more likely to be pulled over or shot because of how they look. Cameron does an amazing job at conveying her personal experience of 10 years in the modeling industry and how she has been judged time and time again. I think it was emotional how she conveyed it and was absolutely brilliant, I loved it.
8)What a driverless world could look like by Wanis Kabbaj
Wannis Kabbaj compares traffic flow to the flow of our blood stream in our body. He states that the traffic flow is offal because we do not use all the space properly. Our body is very efficient and does not have traffic flows when transferring blood platelets through our arteries because it uses all the space and in that sense it is conservative. We are not conservative as a society because people drive big cars and do not carpool. If we were a little bit more cautious about our environment as a society and pushed to use every space then we would be more sufficient. His goal and many other scientists he works with is a plan on creating a vehicle in which people do not physically drive themselves because we cannot be efficient in that way. We will have huge buses that break off and go to certain areas along with having cars that fly and drive themselves. This idea is not new to me, but it does sound interesting. The task is always “how is that going to happen and when?” He seems like he is really passionate about this idea, although the comparison about blood vessels and the car is very interesting.
7. Sal Khan - Let's teach for mastery not test scores.
ReplyDeleteIn this talk, the founder of Khan Academy speaks the truth on how he became so invested on helping students. In his earlier years, his younger cousins wanted help on math, so what he did was record himself teach a math lesson. And then as time progressed, he realized that people who were not his cousin were watching and thanking him for helping them out with a subject that they though was so difficult to learn. He also states that we should be grading not on test scores but the interactions the student has during class. Test make people highly nervous therefore making them bad test takers. And if they fail the test it makes them feel bad about themselves and their abilities.
8. John Legend - Redemption Song
ReplyDeleteSinger John Legend tells us in this TED talk that, he believes that we all deserve redemption. That prisoners deserve redemption for what the crimes that they have committed. But what I feel he was really trying to say was, that he wants freedom to different types of people, not just those who have had it for the last 200 years. And he claims that yes although we are all free, we are not all free. We all have a different set of right and we all have different things we can and cannot do. and how those who tell us something is wrong, they do it themselves.
saac Lidsky: What reality are you creating for yourself?
ReplyDeleteThis ted talk was really good. The man who spoke was the right guy to tell this tale and he was very convincing and knowledgable about his subject. The fact that he kept using visual metaphors even though he is blind really stood out to me. He seemed to know what he was talking about, however, because he is blind, I cannot tell how he got all of this information on stats and such. The main part of the argument seemed sound, but can I really trust the evidence?
James Veitch: The agony of trying to unsubscribe
I laughed so hard while watching this ted talk. I could really relate to what the guy was doing because I mess with people and make everything into a game as well. I really understood and picked up what this guy was putting down and I have to say this is the funniest ted talk I’ve seen so far. I just wish it was longer.
James Veitch: This is what happens when you reply to spam email
So after watching the Agony of trying to unsubscribe, i found this. This Ted talk, like the previous one, was great. It was funny and kept me entertained and entwined in the details. This guy seems to understand how to mess with people who are trying to mess with you in a way I have only seen one other person in my life be able to do. He is a comedian and he spreads awareness of scammers on the interwebs. Although this may not be an extremely educational video, I did learn from it and enjoyed watching it.
Negin Farsad: A highly scientific taxonomy of haters
So, I really enjoyed watching this ted talk. It was funny in a realistic way and really explained why lightening up about some things really does help people in the long wrong. It also had realistic darkish humour that I really enjoy.
Kathryn Schulz: On being wrong
I watched this Ted talk because of the essay question coming up. I watched it, and i really enjoyed to explanation she had given for why people don’t like to be wrong, and the ways that people will go around proving that they are right, no matter what the situation is.
Kelli Jean Drinkwater: Enough with the fear of fat
This talk was really surprising. A woman was completely comfortable in her 300+ pound body, and even flourished it. She lived with little to no care about that status quo of being thin, and I personally think that she is not wrong. I think it was a pretty interesting talk on Fatphobia.
Chinaka Hodge: What will you tell your daughters about 2016?
This woman spoke a beautiful poem with many rights. She seemed to really feel passionate about her writing. I don’t agree with a lot of the points she brought up, but I do think that she has good points and that it was artistically creative.
Eli Pariser: Beware online "filter bubbles"
I really liked this Ted Talk. Eli had me at the first quote from Mark Zuckerberg. I feel like that Eli did a great job proving his point on how cookies are actually a bad thing. I have agreed with this ever since I got no ad variation on anything.
Less stuff, more happiness: Graham Hill
ReplyDeleteGram brings up the question: “Is less more?” He believes that with less stuff and occupied space, leads directly to less CO2, saves money, decreases stress, and increases productivity. For examples for everyone to relate to would be activities like camping, cruising, or going to college. All these examples provide freedom of life cluttering possessions. How do we implement this lifestyle into our own lives? Gram’s answer is simple: edit ruthlessly, think small, and use multifunctional household appliances. This way of living, from my experience, seems to be the best way to live. On the sailboat Mariposa I lived in a small living space that brought together my family closer but also made my life simple. In a sense you can become ignorant of the world in your very own enclosed space designed for your life, this enables for you to focus on yourself and what matters. Many say that one's environment is key to one's soul, so create the hearth that best accommodates your soul.
How to grow fresh air: Kamal Meattle
In rising 3rd world countries the fast industrialization is severely affecting the air people breath. This is leading to upwards rates of asthma and other air related issues. The effects of the horrible air quality is illustrated by the masks that many people in large Asian cities wear in public daily, not because they’re scared of the flu, but because they are scared of the air they breathe. So why not use nature to combat the unnatural toxic air being produced. Kamal found that three specific plants are exceptionally good at filtering the air quality: Areca Palm, Mother-in-laws Tongue, and Money Plant. There was extremely convincing statistical data showing the decrease of lung irritant by a statistically significant margin. If this was true data and not manipulated at all then this is a truly functioning answer to the air problem in rising 3rd world countries. This is a great answer for millions who suffer from the ability to not have clean air, but this is just another short term answer to the horrible treachery of human selfishness to progress at the cost of our once loved planet. This is not the time and place to speak of the climate but as a society of intelligent animals we need to focus on the long term fixes not the short term. The weak of mind think of today, the strong think of tomorrow.
The Hidden Power of Smiling: Ron Gutman
ReplyDeleteHow powerful is a smile? Surprisingly a smile means a lot more than someone having a good time. In fact a smile can accurately sub-categorize the approximate number of years you will live. This is partially due to its power to reduce stress enhancing hormones. Accomplished Swiss scientist performing experiments found that one smile can give up to the same mental stimulation of 2,000 chocolate bars. The most intriguing part of a smile is its contagious quality. Smiles take a cyclical quality; you smile therefore look and feel good, someone sees you so they mimic you and now you both are smiling feeling good and influencing others to smile. I never knew how much of a major role a smile plays in our everyday lives. This is a slap to everyone and anyone who sees this talk to smile a little more because it only can help. But I must raise the questions: If you fake a smile does it have the same effect? Are some people naturally more inclined to smile than others? What’s the impact of a frown? I know of many peers in high school that do use smiling more to their advantage the problem is that as a hobbyist of human psychology and behavior I can normally see a fake smile from a mile away. How do others not see or respond to their fakeness?
How to gain control of your free time: Laura Vanderkam
Laura Vanderkam researched the lives of successful people and found how they time manage their extraordinarily busy lives. Time is highly elastic and will stretch to accommodate priorities. When people say they don’t have time, they are really saying that it’s not a priority for them. If you want something to get done, simply just make it a priority. This particular talk was very informing and can severely help with time management. Now I know the key to managing time is to treat things we want to do, as needs. It human nature to survive and do what we need but it’s also human nature to enjoy the instant gratification of being lazy and unproductive. So simply bypass our human nature and make “wants” in to priorities (“needs”).
ReplyDeleteHow to speak so people what to listen: Julian Treasure
Julian is an excellent orator who shows us how to keep and draw the attention of who we are talking to. He goes over all the things that you should not talk about; gossip, judging, negativity, complaining, excuses, lying, and dogmatism. This confuses me because in my life and high school society these are all the things that seem to draw attention and what everyone talks about. What does this say about the high school environment that I live in? He also speaks that you should HAIL people or in other words: speak honesty, authentically, with integrity, and with love. I found this acronym to already have applied to my life because I’ve already noticed that people seem to listen to me when I speak of the truth with passion and sincerity. Finally Julian mentions the speaking tool box that consists of: Register, timbre, prosody, pace, silence, pitch, volume. Did you know that we generally vote for politician with lower voices? This demonstrates how power of how you sound. I personally did not know this and moving forward I will incorporate more speaking tools then I used to.
The happy secret to better work: Shawn Achor
Wow! Never have I heard someone speak more truth in a ted talk. Personally this is the way I structure and live my life! Shawn’s theory that happiness increases overall productivity among a host of other positives, is about to revolutionize the world. I see negativity impact people first hand being a high school student immersed in an immature society of back stabbing snakes. Whenever any student gets public scrutiny I always see a directly related drop in their social activity and educational successes. Not only that but in the IB program student push to always be better to try to be the best, but what I see instead are class rooms full of negative and stressed personas. Being a positive kid, living in a negative society is very tough people begin to assume that “you think that you’re untouchable,” because of the fact that when I hear negative comments I listen but refuse to give the person the gratification of affecting my positive attitude. All in all this has just solidified my pursuit to continuing a healthy positive life.
ReplyDeleteUnderwater Astonishments: David Gallo
I could not help myself from peering into this ted talk to get some glimpses at some extremely intriguing ocean creatures. Did you know that we have only explored 3% of our oceans? David Gallo shows some of the cool creatures that swim in our oceans. First, the bioluminescence of the deep sea creatures is similar to fireflies was especially cool to learn that it was used for not only to look cool, but to also attract prey and avoid predators. My favorite glowing deep sea creature was one that had two concentric circles that rotated in opposite ways, clockwise and counterclockwise (I think the function of this one was to hypnotize me!) then David moves to the surface of the ocean where we get to observe the amazing adaptive powers of cuttlefish, squid, and octopus. I got to see and learn how octopus move on the ocean floor in succinct with the diffraction of light from the waves to seamlessly slip across the floor with perfect secretly.
What the discovery of gravitational waves means: Allan Adams
Allan explains what gravitational waves are, a ripple in the size and shape of the universe, and explores their importance to us. Although gravitational waves are very weak, we are able to pick them up with LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory). Then turn the picked up waves and turn them into compressed air waves, aka sound. Now we can hear the universe! It is so amazing to hear the collision of absolutely behemoth black holes colliding. Many don’t see the use of knowing and hearing these gravitational waves but we can learn lots from the size, length, and magnitude of the sinusoidal wave. This new way to observe the universe and hear the invisible is new frontier for us to explore. I have high hopes that this recent discovery will lead to further astronomical discoveries for human society.
TED TALKS
ReplyDeleteWhat will humans look like in 100 years? | Juan Enriquez
In this Ted Talk Juan Enriquez discusses wether or not the unnatural evolution of human bodies is ethical or not. This Ted Talk was very interesting as I am very intrigued by biology and humans in general. Mr. Enriquez discussed about splicing the humans genetic makeup in order to sustain the human race and rebel against long term extinction. In my opinion this is not ethical as I am a firm believer in nature, and that humans are intended to die when the Earth deems it so. So to see a ted talk in which Juan Enriquez opposes my beliefs, is very interesting and quite enthralling. He points out that humans should be attempting interplanetary travel in order to ensure our survival. If humans manage to accomplish this I believe its a sign that we are intended to leave the planet. This ted talk overall was extremely enticing for me and I would definitely recommend it to many.
Do Schools Kill Creativity? | Sir Ken Robinson
Sir Ken Robinson in his Ted Talk discusses the effects of academic expectations in school on the average persons creativity. Sir Ken Robinson had a very comedic atmosphere that drew a lot of the audience in to what he said. Where many adults would disagree these adults did as Sir Robinson's charismatic personality and background in education provided the audience with assurance and confidence in Sir Robinson's opinion. I really enjoyed the Ted Talk as it discusses a topic which I am very interested in and find extremely intriguing. This Ted Talk was also delivered very well as it was not boring or monotonous like some other Ted Talks, overall contributing to an amazing Ted Talk.
Underwater Astonishments | David Gallo
This Ted Talk was extremely short and not that exciting to me I wish Mr. Gallo had related his discussion to the outside world more. He tended to list a lot of facts and make jokes that were not that funny. There is not much else to comment on for this Ted Talk I honestly dont know how he even acquired such a thing with such a lame aura and way of carrying out conversation. I definitely would not recommend this Ted Talk to anyone. (Unless you really like squid)
Unveiling game-changing wearable tech | Pattie Maes
Pattie Maes in her Ted Talk discussing new "sixth sense" technology that would supposedly enhance the daily lifestyle of the average person. I found the topic of this Ted Talk exciting when separated from the details and other topics. I personally prefer Ted talks that have an enlightening impact on my lifestyle or personally relate to me. This Ted Talk did not do that so much henceforth I did not enjoy it as much as I would have liked. It was very intriguing and Pattie Maes did an ok job at delivering her talk but could have been a little less formal and slightly more casual in order to catch the audiences attention. Overall the Ted Talk was pretty interesting it could just improve in a few areas.
The Power of Vulnerability | Brene Brown
In this Ted Talk Brene Brown does an outstanding job of involving the audience and enlightening personal experiences to better emphasize the "power of vulnerability" as an individual heavily schooled in social sciences she had a lot of background information on what she had experienced and how to respond to such questions. However she needed a professionals help as in a therapist for therapists overall outlining the severity of her situation. Ms. Brown was quite comedic and perpetuated a lot of light hearted comments to lighten the mood when it began to dampen. This Ted Talk was enlightening in a multitude of ways and provided for a solid Ted Talk.
This is What Happens When You Respond to Spam Email | James Veitch
ReplyDeleteWhen James Veitch responds to spam mail, it provides for a comedic, laughable discussion, however, it does not provide for a reasonable Ted Talk in which one would normally discuss a serious issue that is eminent or relevant to modern society. A lot of people have spam filters and a mass majority of the general populous ignore spam. There really is not much i got from this Ted Talk and I found it nearly impossible to finish it as It wasn't very intriguing. Overall this Ted Talk barely qualifies as such and I do not recommend it to anyone. Like no one.
What Will You Tell Your Daughters About 2016? | Chinaka Hodge
ReplyDeleteThis "Ted Talk" was less along the lines of a discussion or presentation and more along the lines of a spoken poem in which Chinaka Hodge triumphantly sums up the whole of 2016 mentioning major events and issues that occurred throughout the year such as police brutality, feminist movements, and perseverance. She does this by creating the lens as if being a mother talking to her child, stating that your daughter "will ask the hard questions" she will not care about the "arch of your brow" or the "weight of your clutch" I personally really enjoyed this as a fan if poetry and although it was very short the message was immensely powerful. I definitely recommend this to any feminist, activist, or poetry enthusiast.
10 Ways To Have a Better Conversation | Celeste Headlee
Celeste Headlee spends the duration of her Ted Talk advising her audience on how to enhance their abilities to conversate. Throughout her presentation she references her personal life in order to further emphasize the necessity of conversation in our daily lives. This Ted Talk was extremely entrancing as Mrs. Headlee involved her audience and was well put together in her efforts to emphasize the importance of listening. She gives 10 well thawed out reasons on how to have a good conversation in which i believe many would find useful. To find out these 10 reasons I guess you're just going to have to watch it yourself.
Underwater Astonishments - David Gallo
ReplyDeleteIn this TED talk, the marine biologist David Gallo exhibits the fascinating characteristics of deep sea creature as well as the incredible ability of shallow water creatures to camouflage into their surroundings. The deep sea creatures caught on a special camera are bio luminescent meaning that they glow almost like a lightning bug. The changing patterns of their colored lights makes viewing these creatures almost like an art show. Closer to the surface, the ability of octopuses and other squid like creatures to blend in with their surroundings is incredible. The ability of these animals to change texture, patterns, and color allows them to survive in an ocean that is densely populated by predators. I really enjoyed this TED talk.
The Art of Misdirection - Apollo Robbins
ReplyDeleteThis TED talk was incredibly fascinating and I really enjoyed watching it. It gets at the concepts of attention and focus and how even though something can be clear in front of us, unless we intentionally observe it, we may not realize it. The idea of a Frank is introduced. Frank is a little man who sits in your brain and does all of the surveillance, fact checking, and other jobs. If we can distract Frank, we can steal someone's attention and then take advantage of them. The best part of this TED talk was the amazing demonstration. Apollo uses the idea of misdirection to mess with an audience member named Joe by taking this out of his pockets, taking his watch off, and doing other things that I could not even catch. At times it was hard to follow because even my attention was being taken advantage of and I was too falling for the tricks, but it was incredibly interesting to see how the human mind could not catch the deception it was faced with. Awareness of anything is so important and this video was a reminder of that for me.
Ted Talk#1: How students of color confront impostor syndrome by Dena Simmons
ReplyDeleteDena Simmons started her ted talk talking about her childhood. She talked about growing up as in immigrant in Bronx, New York. Dena told the audience about her her neighborhood was the source of weed and drugs. Simmons was soon sent to a boarding school in Connecticut with a full scholarship. She talked about the difference in the boarding school made her feel like she didn’t belong to the place. Dena then discuss “kind of violence” which is the damage kids go through when they are pressured to be someone they aren't. She then relieves she has impostor syndrome. She concludes her talk urging the audience that the the connections that kids of color have with their connection with the family and community should be preserved for their creativity. This was an amazing talk and I share same perspective that poc should not lose their cultures and traditions.
Ted Talk#2: Your smartphone is a civil rights issue by Christopher Soghoian
Christopher Soghoian begins his ted talk explaining the two most dominant operating system, Android and iOS. Soghoian then states that IOS is used more in the wealthier, high class group. While Android is dominant in the lower class. He then goes on to make his point on why smartphones are a civil right issue. IOS is able to protect its users form surveillance from various organizations, hackers, and even the government. However, Android unable to offer the same level of security as IOS. He explains how it goes against civil rights, and ethics that one group remains protected from surveillance, while the other group does not. The rich are the only onw who are protected, since they are able to afford iphones. This was an okay ted talk, I didn't really understand the point he was trying to make, but it was a good topic.
Ted Talk#3: Could A Drug Prevent Depression And PTSD by Rebecca Brachman
Brachman begins her talk by discussing how the administrations of antidepressant treatments are a sign of helping others remain happy while staying clinically stable. But how there is still no official treatment for PTSD, nor depression. Then she emphasizes how common depression is in our society, and how a person at least know a person who suffers from it. Brachman then went on to explain how she and a colleague had started to run experiments on mice, who suffered from depression or PTSD. She explained how the most recent antidepressant drug, Calypsol, aided the mouse in becoming less depressed, leaving it to explore, instead of hiding in a corner. She concludes her talk, on how this new drug could be the end of mental epidemic. This was a really interesting and inspiring talk. Her talk reflected the reality of how society thinks of mental illness.
Ted Talk#4: Why you should talk to strangers by Kio Stark
Approaching another stranger and starting a conversation implies to an important social impact that everyone is being recognized by another. Stark talks about how she is obsessed talking with strangers and making eye contact, which is something people avoid to do. Starks believes that these random act of kinds can bring “profound experiences” and “liberating moments” to another person. People have grown to become a fearful around strangers, due to the way social media indicated that talking to strangers in a negative way. Researchers have also found out that some people feel more confident about revealing their true selves to those who don’t personally know them. Stark explains the the way for an individuals dealing with strangers, their perceptions must overcome fears. Starting random conversations with strangers, can lead to memorable experiences.
TED Talk #4: This country isn't just carbon neutral--it's carbon negative by Tshering Tobgay
ReplyDeleteThis TED talk discusses the small, Himalayan country of Bhutan, and as the title suggests, the fact that it has so little carbon output and so much forest that it is carbon neutral. Much of this is achieved through the overarching policy of the country, which combines social development, economic growth, and environmental protection in what is referred to as gross national happiness. Through this, the Bhutanese government gradually develops the country while choosing not to sacrifice the well being of the lower classes or the pristine environment. In the constitution, Bhutan has committed to always maintaining at least 60% forest cover to remain not just carbon neutral, but carbon negative. I thought that the speaker did a fantastic job in that he started by ousting stereotypes of his country while also introducing its culture. He drew the audience in by describing the positive aspects of Bhutan instead of chiding them on their environmental leniency. He did, however, make a plea for other countries to reduce their carbon output, due to the fact that Bhutan experiences the drawbacks of climate change without even contributing to it. I overall enjoyed both the subject matter and speaker of this enlightened TED talk.
TED Talk #5: Fifty shades of gay by iO Tillett Wright
ReplyDeleteIn this talk, Wright begins by describing the confusion of identity that she experienced throughout her childhood. At first, she could never decide whether she wanted to be a boy or girl, and like many around her insisted on placing herself in those two boxes. Many years later, she began a project to photograph people on the LGBT spectrum with the purpose of showing others that actively worked against them that non-straight people are people too. As she began this project, she realized that she was forcing people to into the same categories that she struggled with as a child. In her adolescents she concluded, like many of her subjects, that she existed somewhere in between gay and straight, boy and girl. Wright also points this out with reference to discrimination, and how homophobes decide exactly what point on the spectrum is too gay or not straight enough. I appreciated Wright's use of personal anecdote to introduce her project as it added and element of humanity to it. I did, however, find her use of notecards distracting, and her nerves were somewhat evident at times. Overall, though, her message was thought-provoking and her presentation was relatively good.
TED Talk #6: Why I love a country that once betrayed me by George Takei
ReplyDeleteThis talk is primarily an extended personal anecdote from beloved Star Trek actor George Takei. He details the experience of being a 5 year old Japanese American relegated to an internment camp along with his parents and siblings. Takei particularly emphasizes the sense of normality that he as a child was able to obtain from the camp. Later, in his teenage years, his father explained to him that a democracy like America was as good as its people and also as fallible as them. This take on a terrible situation, along with the brave actions of the Japanese American 442nd army unit inspired him to remain active to improve upon his home country. While his voice was somewhat shaky at times, I really can't fault him because he's George Takei, c'mon. I appreciated the great detail that he went into when describing his childhood as it made the story and message all the more personal. In general, this was a good talk by a great man with a strong message.
TED Talk #7: The secrets I find on the mysterious ocean floor by Laura Robinson
ReplyDeleteRobinson, a chemical oceanographer (I think) discusses her research in this talk. Much of her work consists of going on long boat voyages not only to get accurate maps of the sea floor, but also to find deep sea corals. Corals, despite growing at the bottom of the ocean, can record seasonal changes in the form of fluctuating carbon dioxide and temperature. Fossilized ones in particular can share data from millennia ago about what the climate was like then. This video was not nearly as good as I had anticipated. I thought that Robinson might link her research to climate change in some way, but instead all she does is describe her research with no reference to a greater purpose. Her speaking style is fine and the underwater footage is indeed fascinating and beautiful, but I didn't find anything particularly thought provoking in this presentation.
#1
ReplyDeleteJames Beacham:How we explore unanswered questions in physics
Nice talk about physics and the LHC, though a little long. James brings up the idea that our universe is just a dx thick region of a four dimensional plane, explaining why gravity is so weak in comparison to the other universal forces. He then shows that this was disproved, but that physics is all about new questions. I did notice that he was a rather wet talker, and someone was drawing skateboards on a whiteboard near the stage.
#2
ReplyDeleteGary Lauder:Take Turns
Much sorter, but still quite good. Gary talks about new ways to design intersections, including a proposed "take truns" sign, which has drivers alternate rather than just follow right-of-way. I'm not sure how I feel about that, but I never though about the impact on the environment that the roads could have. He also gave some data on why roundabouts are safer, which is nice because I've heard people say that a lot, but without any numbers.
TED Talk #8: Dive into an ocean photographer's world by Thomas Peschak
ReplyDeleteThis talk is unusual in that it is pre-recorded, not presented to a live audience, but given the subject matter this is certainly an advantage. Peschak is a marine biologist turned conservation photographer who once sought out the most shocking and gruesome images of human brutality on ocean life to try to reach his audience. Now, he has turned to more hopeful imagery and tries to photograph the coexistence between humans and wildlife. Most of the video is him narrating over videos and pictures of his favorite photography destinations in the ocean. In this way he does exactly as he said and tries to reach the audience, through beautiful, hopeful images. Given that Peschak did not present his at a conference, there is nothing to talk about in terms of presentation. I did, however, find the locations absolutely stunning, especially framed with his obvious affection for them. He, unlike Laura Robinson, did link his work to a larger purpose, which made an already gorgeous video all the more compelling.