02 July 2009

How to watch TEDGlobal 2009 live from home with friends or family

Later this month, you can watch the TEDGlobal 2009 conference live from the UK through an Associate membership -- offering a virtual front-row seat at the conference via a private, live web stream of the main-stage events.

TEDGlobal Associate membership costs $995 and includes a password-protected, single-computer, live web stream of TEDGlobal 2009 as it unfolds in Oxford, and the right to watch with up to 10 other people. Most talks from TEDGlobal 2009 will eventually become TEDTalks, available free on TED.com. But Associate members will be able to watch the full main-stage sessions live as they happen, including introductions, short talks, musical performances, video interstitials and audience interactions that are not shown on the website. Associate membership groups who watched the last TED conference live from Long Beach gave us enthusiastic feedback, persuading us to repeat this service. We learned that people who carve out the time and gather with friends for a multi-day virtual TED experience can gain as much inspiration as those attending live.

TEDGlobal 2009 will explore "The Substance of Things Not Seen." Speakers this year include world-renowned philosophers, scientists, religious leaders, entertainers, artists, musicians and technologists -- see the lineup here. The event will take place July 21-24 in Oxford, UK.

TEDGlobal Associate members will be issued a noncommercial license that allows them to share their webcast with up to 10 viewers in the same room. Also included with each Associates membership: a full year of the legendary TED Media Club, with 5 shipments of books, DVDs and other media throughout the year; enhanced social networking on TED.com; and an exclusive welcome kit that's not available to any other TEDsters, with a viewing diary, postcards and other keepsakes.

Learn more about TEDGlobal Associates membership >>

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02 July 2009

Happy anniversary, T.G.I.M.B.O.E.J.

T.G.I.M.B.O.E.J. stands for The Great Internet Migratory Box Of Electronic Junk, and it's celebrating its first anniversary this week. Do think of it as partly a social experiment, but more so a free-range parcel service-based electronics grab bag that circulates among hardware hackers who are eager to discover useful, cool, old, or even rare treasures from the world of circuits old and new. According to their own description:

[It] is a progressive lending library of electronic components. An internet meme in physical form halfway between P2P zip-archive sharing and a flea market. It arrives full of wonderful (and possibly useless) components, but you will surely find some treasures to keep. You will be inspired look through your own piles, such as they are, and find more mysterious components that clearly need to be donated to the box before it is passed on again.

If you're a tinkerer, a smart hardware geek, a fab-lab fan or aspiring aeronaut who wants to put that dusty old pile of circuit boards, switches, magnets, transistors, transformers, LCDs, CRTs and LEDs to a greater use (and perhaps find some interesting or useful new treasures to fiddle with), T.G.I.M.B.O.E.J. has a useful wiki that will tell you how you can get started.

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01 July 2009

Atheist summer camp, funded by Richard Dawkins' foundation

Via Boing Boing via The First Post, we learn that Richard Dawkins' foundation is funding a summer camp to teach children reason, skepticism and science. From the article:

Alongside the more traditional activities of tug-of-war, swimming and canoeing, children at the five-day camp in Somerset will learn about rational scepticism, moral philosophy, ethics and evolution.

Camp-goers aged eight to 17 will also be taught how to disprove phenomena such as crop circles and telepathy. In the Invisible Unicorn Challenge, any child who can prove that unicorns do not exist will win a £10 note -- which features an image of Charles Darwin, the father of evolutionary theory -- signed by Dawkins, Britain's most prominent atheist.

Related TEDTalks:
+ Richard Dawkins on militant atheism
+ Dan Dennett says religion should be taught in schools -- objectively
+ Michael Shermer on why people believe strange things
+ Diane Benscoter on escaping a cult
+ Julia Sweeney on letting go of god

Or visit the TED.com theme Is There a God?

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01 July 2009

17 words of architectural inspiration: Daniel Libeskind on TED.com

Daniel Libeskind builds on very big ideas. Here, he shares 17 words that underlie his vision for architecture -- raw, risky, emotional, radical -- and that offer inspiration for any bold creative pursuit. (Recorded at TED2009, February 2009 in Long Beach, California. Duration: 18:37)

Twitter URL: http://on.ted.com/1M

Watch Daniel Libeskind's 2009 talk on TED.com where you can download this TEDTalk, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances from our archive of 475+ TEDTalks.

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30 June 2009

TED's Facebook fans asked Gever Tulley absolutely anything -- and he answered

Today, Gever Tulley, founder of the Tinkering School and the man behind today's TEDTalk, agreed to answer any question that our TED Facebook fans proposed. Here are his answers, accompanied by a personal note:

I thank you all for your excellent and thought-provoking questions. Since Tinkering School is itself being tinkered with, it is always interesting to share ideas and see what people think. I tried to answer as if you were sitting at the kitchen table with me now, except that I am able to ramble on unchecked.

I hope that you will all follow along on the blog as we update nightly during Tinkering School starting on July 12th.

As a father myself, I find that parents are overly cautious with their children. How do you respond to critics who claim that children can't handle power tools which will in turn lead to death/dismemberment/lawsuits? -- Nick Wilson

Firstly, I try never to think of the person asking this question as a "critic". I recognize that I am more comfortable with the notion of children being capable than most modern parents, but there is a valid concern at the heart of the emotionally charged issue of putting potentially life-threatening tools in kids hands. I put it in the context of all of the dangerous activities we participate in as toddlers -- like toddling (or is that toddlering?). There is no question that a child can seriously injure themselves by falling flat on their face, but we learn, through a series of very minor bumps and knocks (some worthy of yelling about, some we don't even notice), to put our hands out and catch ourselves before our noses meet the floor.

In their wonderful book The Body Has a Mind of It's Own Sandra and Matthew Blakeslee describe some of the amazing science behind how, when we pick up a stick or a tool, our minds extend our sense of “self” out to the end of that stick. We can "touch" things with the stick and get a very accurate "feel" for the object we are "touching". So, it stands to reason that a power tool is just a very dangerous stick and we can learn feel through it as well -- we just need the safe context in which to learn how to mitigate the risks the power tool presents. These risks are both real and imagined in many cases and part of the learning process includes dispelling the imaginary risks by developing skill through practice.

It is often easier to teach the child to use the tool safely than it is to have a rational discussion about risk with a nervous parent or fear-mongering critic. There is an industry of child-safety specialists serve the market of nervous parents by playing on those fears. In these situations I point out that we're not just letting the kids loose in a room full of chainsaws and hoping for the best -- we never move children beyond their skill and comfort level, we often pair Tinkering School alumni with first-timers when introducing a new tool, and we start with simple tools and work up to the more complicated ones over time. A few scrapes and nicks are actually expected and are part of the learning process. These are the experiences that help the kids treat the larger tools with respect -- without us having to say things like, "You must respect the chop-saw, it can cut off your finger!" which never seems to work the way you want it to.

This Tinkering School reminds me a LOT of homeschooling, and the freedom to try new ideas. Would you work with homeschoolers, too? Have you worked with homeschoolers before? -- Brooke Turner

Brooke, I would work with homeschoolers on a train, I would work with them on a train, in a home, or in a dome. I like green eggs and ham! Tinkering School is exploring two ideas that I think are interesting in this area. We recently started experimenting with kit-based learning and we are working on funding a project we call TinkerMobile.

Kit-based learning is interesting because it is often seen as the opposite the kinds of un-scripted, hands-on building experience that we create at Tinkering School. It is hard to create projects that you can put in a box and ship to someone in another state or country, and have them lose themselves in a semi-guided immersive self-directed experience that has no well-defined conclusion, and in fact leaves them with an appetite for more -- and teaches them something about "friction" or "chemistry". I reject some of the goals of the current commercially available homeschooling kits, and their attempts to recreate a "school-like" experience in the home. So, we started conceiving of a sort of "Cat-in-the-Hat"-like experience where opening the box would unleash the imagination. If parents had a certain amount of trepidation about ordering a kit from us because their children might, in a curiosity-induced frenzy of self-directed learning, cut a new window in their bedroom wall (because they need room for the telescope or smell-o-scope or time-portal) -- then we'd know we were on to something. Let me know if you'd like to beta-test our kits.

The TinkerMobile is an attempt to create a traveling school that stops in communities and unfolds, somewhat circus-like, and brings the Tinkering School experience with it. The idea is that rural communities (here and in other countries) request a visit and some fancy algorithm from Google Maps would create monthly or yearly itineraries that would bring the tinkering to you. Parents could take evening sessions and get more comfortable with tools and learn some of the techniques that we use when we are working with children (our pedagogical methods, so to speak), and children could come during the day and do projects that incorporated the kinds of scrap and native materials available locally.

In support of both of those ideas, we are working with a homeschooling (both unschooling, and curriculum-based) group in Santa Rosa, California who are allowing us to experiment with their children (cue cartoon-ominous laugh).

Do you think this experience can be replicated by parents with their children? Or does this work better in a group environment with lots of kids and parents? How would someone go about making this happen in their own community? -- Will Duke

I think it entirely depends on the relationship that the parents have with their children. In my experience, some parents seem to have trouble letting their children make mistakes as part of the learning process. In these cases we have better success with the children when the parents are not around. On the other hand, I have met homeschooling parents who seem to have no difficulty with creating a very experiment-positive experience for their children.

One of the key ideas of Tinkering School is that we don't follow recipes for the projects. We start from doodles, and that means that we often run into problems (in fact we expect them). A small group of children can maintain a positive attitude and project-momentum when faced with a complicated problem, where a lone child can often become frustrated. The collective seems to express greater creativity than the road-blocked loner. That being said, we have had our share of really gifted loners, and everyone seems to need a little time to work something out on their own -- so we deliberately structure the projects to support that as well.

We are working with groups in Seattle and Baltimore to take the Tinkering School pattern (fully open-source) and implement it in their cities next year, and some interesting conversations are happening in with folks France, China, and Australia. But, making it happen every year is a little like putting on a big musical; there's details like insurance and materials to buy, tickets to sell, and no matter how well you plan things get crazy right before the kids show up. It just takes a little bit of self-confidence, some bravery, and a couple of friends to sign up their kids to get started. We invite you to (and if you are going to call yourself a "Tinkering School", you must) volunteer to come and work at our camp for a week with the kids. We're also developing some seminars to help explain how it works.

READ MORE: See Gever's answers to questions on Tinkering School scholarships, standardized testing in today's schools, Tinkering School for grown-ups and structured learning.

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30 June 2009

Teaching life lessons through tinkering: Gever Tulley on TED.com

Gever Tulley uses engaging photos and footage to demonstrate the valuable lessons kids learn at his Tinkering School. When given tools, materials and guidance, these young imaginations run wild and creative problem-solving takes over to build unique boats, bridges and even a rollercoaster! (Recorded at TED University 2009, February 2009 in Long Beach, California. Duration: 4:05)

Short URL: http://on.ted.com/1K

Watch Gever Tulley's talk from TED University 2009 on TED.com where you can download this TEDTalk, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances from our archive of 450+ TEDTalks.

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29 June 2009

A formula for changing math education: Arthur Benjamin on TED.com

Someone always asks the math teacher, "Am I going to use calculus in real life?" And for most of us, says Arthur Benjamin, the answer is no. He offers a bold proposal on how to make math education relevant in the digital age. (Recorded at TED@PalmSprings 2009, February 2009 in Palm Springs, California. Duration: 2:59)

Short URL: http://on.ted.com/1G

* Don't miss this short comment by Arthur Benjamin, given just after his talk on math and education at TED@PalmSprings.

Watch Arthur Benjamin's talk from TED@PalmSprings 2009 on TED.com where you can download this TEDTalk, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances from our archive of 450+ TEDTalks.

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29 June 2009

Nandan Nilekani joins Indian government

TED2009 speaker Nandan Nilekani has stepped down from the company he co-founded, Infosys, to take a cabinet-level role in the Indian government. It's a rare step in Indian politics -- in fact, the Times of India calls Nilekani's move "the biggest movement from private sector to government in India in recallable memory." Nilekani will head up a three-year program to provide every Indian with a unique identity card. From the Times story:

Nilekani, who will quit his job as co-chairman of the Rs 22,000 crore Infosys to avoid any conflict of interest, has been given the rank and status of cabinet minister, a deadline of three years, a corpus of Rs 100 crore and -- perhaps most importantly -- the flexibility to draw in talent from the private sector to build his core team.

Video: Nilekani talks about his appointment for the Economic Times >>

Nilekani's recent book, Imagining India, takes a visionary look at his country -- its massive economy, and its even more massive potential. Watch his TEDTalk to find out more about his radical re-think of India's economic and social structure.

And find out more about TEDIndia -- taking place this November 1-4, on the Infosys campus near Mysore, India >>

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25 June 2009

Amazing illusion

Via Discover magazine via Akiyoshi Kitaoka:

Incredibly, the blue and the green spirals are the same color. From the article:

The orange stripes go through the "green" spiral but not the "blue" one. So without us even knowing it, our brains compare that spiral to the orange stripes, forcing it to think the spiral is green. The magenta stripes make the other part of the spiral look blue, even though they are exactly the same color.

Two TEDTalks on our mis-wired brains: Dan Dennett and Al Seckel.

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25 June 2009

You are the future of philanthropy: Katherine Fulton on TED.com

In this uplifting talk, Katherine Fulton sketches the new future of philanthropy -- one where collaboration and innovation allow regular people to do big things, even when money is scarce. Giving five practical examples of crowd-driven philanthropy, she calls for a new generation of citizen leaders. (Recorded at TED2007, March 2007 in Monterey, California. Duration: 12:34)

Watch Katherine Fulton's talk from TED2007 on TED.com where you can download this TEDTalk, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances from our archive of 450+ TEDTalks.

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24 June 2009

A sweet deal for old computers

Image source: Laptop.org (OLPC)

An article in MIT's Technology Review reports on a surprising new use for One Laptop Per Child's user interface, Sugar. From the article:

The open-source education software developed for the "$100 laptop" can now be loaded onto a $5 USB stick to run aging PCs and Macs with a new interface and custom educational software.

"What we are doing is taking a bunch of old machines that barely run Windows 2000, and turning them into something interesting and useful for essentially zero cost," says Walter Bender [...] "It becomes a whole new computer running off the USB key; we can breathe new life into millions of decrepit old machines."

Nicholas Negroponte, who has given many TEDTalks, says "Putting Sugar on a stick is absolutely the right thing to do."

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24 June 2009

New rules for rebuilding a broken nation: Paul Collier on TED.com

Long conflict can wreck a country, leaving behind poverty and chaos. But what's the right way to help war-torn countries rebuild? At TED@State, Paul Collier explains the problems with current post-conflict aid plans, and suggests 3 ideas for a better approach. (Recorded at TED@State, at the US State Department, June 2009, in Washington, DC. Duration: 17:03)

Watch Paul Collier's talk from TED@State on TED.com where you can download this TEDTalk, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances from our archive of 450+ TEDTalks.

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23 June 2009

A note on today's talk posting [Updated 6/24]

Update, June 24: After digging further into the issues surrounding this talk, we've decided to withdraw it altogether. It wowed, but also misled. Our apologies to those upset by this episode. Our thanks to those who alerted us to the problem. Meanwhile, we're on the look out for a new, better way to showcase this powerful technology. - Chris Anderson, TED Curator

Below is the content from the original blog post:

Our posting this morning of Chris Hughes' mini-TEDTalk from TED@PalmSprings has prompted a flurry of aggrieved responses [GIF] from the open source software community.

The talk was a two-minute demo of "augmented reality" software (in which real-world video is combined with computer-generated graphics). Hughes showed it working inside a browser using Flash and won enthusiastic applause from the live audience. But when we posted the video today, commenters felt he was claiming too much personal credit for the software and had not mentioned the two development projects on which it was based, Papervision 3D and the FLARToolkit.

To be fair to Chris:

+ He had not come to TED prepared to give a demo. Instead, he had been showing the software privately, but the excitement it generated prompted a request for an impromptu demo. In two minutes, there is not a lot of time to give out a credit-roll.

+ In an interview he gave right afterward, he acknowledged the toolkit on which his demo was based, describing it as "unbelievably awesome."

+ On his blog, he has also clarified the extent of his contributions, and has published the code.

Given the controversy, he has agreed that it makes sense to remove the video from the Talks section of the TED.com and repost a new version here on the blog with attributions added. Here it is:

His efforts have brought the excitement and potential of augmented reality to a much wider audience, and We are eager to showcase this technology in more depth at a future TED. Our thanks to all who've helped us navigate through this issue.

Sincerely,
Chris Anderson
TED Curator

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22 June 2009

Facebook asked Philip Zimbardo absolutely anything -- and he answered

Today, eminent psychologist and TEDTalks star Philip Zimbardo (see his talks on evil and the paradox of time) agreed to answer TED's Facebook fans' questions on Absolutely Anything -- and he did! Read on:

Does time orientation influence which children become bullies? -- Kathy Hermanv

Interesting question, but there's no research on this relationship. Bullies are often people who are shy and can't make friends easily, so, as the theme of the movie A Bronx Tale tells us, it is better to be feared if you can't be loved. They substitute dominance for social support, and may have been abused earlier so carry on the use of power in dealing with others. They graduate onto becoming workplace bullies and making many other worker's lives miserable. However, bullies may be the perpetrators of evil but it is the evil of passivity of all those who know what is happening and never intervene that perpetuates such abuse.

[Ed: Check out Dr. Zimbardo's book, The Time Paradox for a detailed look at his new thinking on the hidden psychological power of time.]

What causes feelings of embarrassment in shy people? -- Malin Frankenhaeuser

Lots of stuff: feeling as the object of the other's attention, feeling being evaluated or judged, singled out even for commendation, alone with a member of opposite sex, feeling inadequate around superiors, even imagining future scenarios of social failures. Check out my books: Shyness: What It Is, What to Do About It, and The Shy Child.

How do you keep love alive? -- Chris West

Remembering and enacting the song: "I love you more today than yesterday, but not as much as tomorrow." Say each day, "l love you." Do something that makes the object of love feel special, wanted, and desired. Put Post-its around with hearts and your initials and that of your loved one. If it is romantic love, work at making love as often as possible and with as much sensuous pleasure as possible. Don't have sex when you are tired, overfed or drunk or bored; just go to sleep and do it the next day.

Is suffering a part of what it means to be a hero? -- Pedro Fontes

Not at all. My definition of heroism is "taking action on behalf of others (or a moral cause) in need, with awareness of potential personal cost and no expectation of tangible rewards." Others may be suffering of being unfairly wronged, and the hero recognizes that injustice or pain and acts socio-centrically to prevent or mitigate the wrong or the pain. See my website, TheLuciferEffect.com (celebrating heroism), EverydayHeroism.org.

What is the greatest mistake the field of psychology has made? -- Justin Paine

Focusing for so long on the negatives in human nature, like mental illness, aggression, prejudice and antisocial behavior. Psychologists are optimists who believe that understanding the causal mechanisms in such phenomena they can begin to prevent, modify or change such negative states and behaviors. However, this focus on the Yin prevented most psychologists from recognizing the Yang -- the positives about people and human nature. That focus on the negative is being corrected by the Positive Psychology movement, started by U. Penn. Professor Martin Seligman in 1998. Just this weekend that group held the first annual International Positive Psychology Association World Congress in Philadelphia, attended by more than 1,700 people from more than 30 nations. Their focus is recognizing and building human strengths and virtues, and doing so across the school curriculum, in business and the military and more. It is an exciting new field of scientific research, education and application.

Which political system is the most humane? -- Xenia Benivolski

People want fairness, justice and to have the opportunity to make a difference in the world they inhabit. They want to succeed by merit and effort. In general, participatory democracy can help best to achieve such goals and needs, where it is truly created and maintained by the will of the people and is not merely illusionary democracies, where votes are rigged or fraud and corruption dominates. We are in the midst of a unique world experience in Iran, created by the electronic revolution that is making the entire world instantly aware of that likely fraudulent vote and the need for an honest, supervised re-casting of votes. In the past, the United States government has supported a bunch of pseudo-democracies around the world as long as their leaders were anti-Communism or even fascist juntas.

Is there such a thing as a good cult? -- Christopher Glass

Great question. It is one I used to pose in my Mind Control course at Stanford University, going one step further and inviting students to design such a cult. Many cults start off with high ideals that get corrupted by leaders or their board of advisors who become power-hungry and dominate and control members' lives. No group with high ideals starts off as a "cult"; they become one when their errant ways are exposed. A good cult delivers on its promises. A good cult nourishes the needs of its members, has transparency and integrity, and creates provisions for challenging its leadership openly. A good cult expands the freedoms and well-being of its members rather than limits them.

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