Blog, by date: 2009_nov

TED Talks (from 2009/11/26)

I've been downloading a lot from iTunes recently, both in the form of TED talks and iTunes U videos. I'll post about iTunes U later.

TED talks, for the uninitiated, are 5-20 minute lectures on something that someone(usually a researcher or philanthropist) has been working on to make the world a better or cooler place. I've been watching them the last few days, and they're really great for hearing an opinion you might not, otherwise. A few of my favorites, in no particular order:

• John Rives: If I controlled the Internet - A great poem about how to better organize the Internet.

• Barry Schwartz: The Paradox of Choice - How have more choices raised our expectations in everyday life?

• Rory Sutherland: Life lessons from an ad man - How is the perception of things in the world around us related to the reality of those things? And how could our world be better just by changing our perception of it?

• Hans Rosling: Asia's Rise: how and when -“It was not the course content in itself that changed mindset, it was the brute realization the first morning that the Indian students were better than me!” and a prediction for when the average pay per Indian per month will reach/surpass the US and UK.

• Rachel Pike: The science behind a climate headline -A great graduate school experience, and perhaps a reason for paying attention to those crazy hippy scientists that squawk about the sky falling.