I came across another TED speaker, Taryn Simon, who shows that having an extremely developed critical eye is enough (if the medium you choose to display it in is also staggeringly interesting).  I had one of those “a-hah” moments where I realized that I’m just limiting myself in what is possible.  She’s a good reminder that the artist chooses the medium second to the message.  At least that’s my take on it.

What I learned today:
The best way to teach is to show everyone else how they were right all along, not tell them how you were right in the first place and that they should listen to you.

Rachel Pike’s TED presentation in Oxford.  If anything, its interesting.  Quick video (4 mins).  Enjoy!

As a TED fan, I love watching the videos on the main site, but I love sharing them with my friends and family even more. This is why, after more than a year of regularly sharing videos via Facebook, I was quite disappointed when I told everyone that I’d gotten the license to hold TEDxRochester. Their response of “What’s TED?” was a bit unexpected.

I hadn’t intended to share any videos on this blog as I figure most visitors to the site have already seen as many as I have. But, last night, I finally got around to watching “George Smoot on the design of the universe“. As a lifelong astronomy geek, I’m really not sure why it took so long for me to finally watch it, but I’ve already watched it twice to make up for it.

Mr. Smoot’s talk is a fascinating and detailed overview of what we know about the nature and structure of the universe and how we’ve learned it. Starting about 10 minutes in, though, the real action starts as an animation of a tour of the universe. It begins far out at the edges and moves slowly inward to zoom in on a super cluster of galaxies. This is easily the most exhilarating view of our universe I’ve ever seen. It is humbling in its simple visualization of the scales involved…scales I once thought I understood.

My own love of science began at a very young age, and that spark was fanned when I was ten and a charismatic poet named Carl Sagan expanded my consciousness via a series called Cosmos. A scientific dilettante, astronomy was always my first love. But, even after all of these years, nothing in my imagination or experience could compare to the grandeur and majesty glimpsed in George’s animation.

In the Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, Douglas Adams describes a torture device called the Total Perspective Vortex:

When you are put into the Vortex you are given just one momentary glimpse of the entire unimaginable infinity of creation, and somewhere in it a tiny little mark, a microscopic dot on a microscopic dot, which says, “You are here.”

George Smoot has given me an indication of what it must be like inside that insidious machine. When the talk was over, I sat and just stared at the screen, my mind unable to come back to the base reality it deals with every day. Being this powerful when viewed on a small, two-dimensional display I can easily understand how someone placed in that terrible machine would lose their minds.

This is hands down one of my most favorite talks I’ve seen so far. And for that reason, I decided to share it via the blog. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Filmed Jan 07

Source: www.TED.com

Ok.  You know me by now…  Well, at least you know several things about me if you’ve been reading marginalia for a bit.  Things such as the fact that I’m horrible at keeping the blog up to date (something I’m diligently working to correct).  That I am addicted to addiction.  And that I’m a bit OCD…  like in the way I’m obsessed with classifying my posts into features, the names of which I incorporate into the title of the post.  It creates a sense of consistency, like I have achieved something similar to regularity; it is, somehow, comforting.

So, this post is no exception.  The title is preceded by “W.M.G.F.”, an abbreviation never before seen on marginalia, which means a bit of explanation is in order.  Can anyone guess what it stands for?

I promise that the phrase does not contain any curse words…

Still puzzled?  Ok; I’ll tell you.  W.M.G.F. stands for “waving my geek flag.”

You may remember this phrase as the title of one of my recent posts, a post in which I share a video of a talk given by an awesome lexicographer about why we need to redefine the way we think about the dictionary.  Well, I decided that I have a lot of other geeky material/ideas to share with anyone interested enough to read/listen/view it.  Thus, W.M.G.F. was born.

I plan on this being a semi-regular feature here on marginalia.  No promises about timing or frequency, just consistency in geeky material.

What exactly do I mean by geeky material?  Topics I currently envision include video games, electronics, social science theory, history, comics, information and library science and pop culture.  I’m sure that this is by no means an exhaustive list of topics that will make an appearance in W.M.G.F. but it gives you an idea of what to expect.

Today, I have another video to share with you from TED.  In this short talk, anthropologist Stefana Broadbent talks about how communication technology has changed how people connect to one another – how they build and maintain relationships – and, ultimately, how this is changing social norms and expectations.  You may be surprised by what she found…

Besides being fascinating in its own right, it makes me happy to see serious ethnographic research being done in modern industrialized cultures.

Flag waived…

Seeing Gary’s Social Media Count made me think of Ray Kurzweil and his work in trying to document the pace of technological change. The unofficial leader of a current generation of futurists, he is a uniquely interesting man with bold predictions about the near future.

Ray believes that Moore’s law, the doubling of computer processing power every 18 months or so, is not a singular phenomenon but that it is mirrored in technological advances across the board. We tend to think of technological development growth as being diagonal and linear. Kurzweil argues that it is actually occurring at an exponential rate. Exponential growth is peculiar in that it is very slow for at inception until it explodes upwards in a very short period of time. His conclusion is that we will reach a point in the near future, where the pace of change is so great and the concomitant changes to our lives so enormous in scope, that it is essentially impossible to predict much beyond that point in time. Et voila the Singularity.

Happily, he does predict a bunch of interesting stuff between now and then. It is a slightly intimidating view of the near future with nanorobots policing our bodies, the brain mapped and understood, artificial intelligence zooming ahead of our own meagre biology.

You can hear him speak here – it is from 2006 and he is unfortunately much less charismatic in real life but then again I can’t blame him for being a bit shy at TED.

Då tycker jag ni tar 20 minuter på er och tittar på den här.

Alguns videozinhos do lounge /coffee breaks do TEDxSP.

I just wanted to share this wonderful TED talk by IPA and Ogilvy honcho Rory Sutherland. Speaking on the theme of intangible value and perception, it is both witty and enlightening. Enjoy!

Fiquei estarrecido quando entrei no site da Oi Fm e vi um destaque chamado TEDx São Paulo. Na hora ouvi a entrevista do organizador Helder Araújo. O tema do evento aqui no Brasil foi “O que o Brasil tem a oferecer para o Mundo agora?”

Pena que só descobri o evento no dia do cadastramento dos escolhidos a participar na platéia. Isso mesmo, para ir assistir ao vivo os Talks do TEDx SP os interessados tinham que preencher uma ficha de inscrição que passou por uma avaliação. Somente os candidatos aprovados foram selecionados. Na avaliação tinham perguntas do tipo “O que você tem a contribuir com a comunidade TEDx SP? “, “O que você tem a contribuir com a comunidade TEDx SP?”.

A seleção dos palestrantes foi interessante também, lista de palestrantes, entre eles o Fabio Colletti Barbosa, presidente do grupo Santander, o João Paulo Cavalcanti, sócio da BOX1824 e muitas outras pessoas interessantes passando por diversas áreas.

Com certeza daqui a um tempo eu posto falando sobre o que foi discutido no evento, como não participei vou ter que caçar vídeos e comentários na internet. Mas parabéns pela iniciativa da comissão organizadora e que muitos outros venham.

Abraços

@rafaelcs

* A íntegra do texto que preparei para minha inspiração na apresentação no TEDx SP.

Foto by Rafael Hernandez

Me convidaram para falar aqui no TEDx SP mas antes de falar eu gostaria de ouvir.

Ouvir o que outro diz a partir de onde ele diz

O que o Brasil tem a oferecer ao mundo hoje?

Existe um sujeito perguntando, sempre.

Tudo que é dito é dito de um observador a outro que pode ser ela ou ele mesma.

Quem apenas vive, sem refletir, não tem o que perguntar. Segue vivendo.

O peixe que vive dentro da água não percebe a água.

Me lembro que quando era pequeno e fui passar o dia na casa de um colega de classe, filho de japoneses, conheci um modo de vida bem diferente da minha casa.

Quando voltei para casa comecei a perguntar porque as coisas lá em casa eram daquele modo.

Então nesta pergunta escuto alguém que viu o Brasil de fora, de um peixe que saiu da água e que, pela curiosidade ou pela dor, convida os outros peixes a refletirem sobre a água onde estão mergulhados.

O que o Brasil tem a oferecer ao mundo hoje?

Vou tentar perceber a partir de qual entendimento esta pergunta está sendo formulada. Vou construir a pergunta percebendo de onde eu a escuto. E vou tentar perceber os verbos que cada parte da pergunta me traz.

O que o Brasil tem a oferecer ao mundo hoje?

O QUE?

Daqui de onde eu escuto, escuto neste “O QUE” o verbo buscar:

Buscar algo que ainda não vimos, descobrir algo novo, inventar, criar!

Escuto também buscar um novo valor em algo que sempre esteve em nossas vistas, ver com um novo olhar; renovar nossas percepções sobre tudo que está aí;

Até aqui está fácil. Vamos em frente.

O BRASIL

Nesta palavra ouço o verbo Brasileirar. Existe este verbo? Bem se não existe certamente existe esta ação: brasileirar, ou seja, conservar-se Brasileiro em um viver cotidiano que um sujeito distingue com um viver de brasileiro.

É brasileiro aquele que é aceito por si mesmo e por outros como sendo brasileiro.

Ou seja, o brasileiro surge apenas na observação de um outro sujeito. O brasileiro não é em si, e por isso podemos dizer que o Brasil não é em si.

O Brasil surge como uma rede de entrelaçamentos consensuais sempre na interação dos sujeitos pelas emoções e raciocínios que ocorrem no fluir destas emoções!

Então as fronteiras do Brasil são fronteiras emocionais.

Considerando que o fundamento da dinâmica de nossa espécie é o amor, digo até que a o Brasil vai até onde nosso amor uns pelo outros alcança!

E quando digo aqui amor não falo do sentimento ou emoção, falo de um fundamento amoroso dos seres humanos.

O amor é um fundamento biológico cultural de nossa espécie.

Lembrando que a espécie humana se funda a partir das relações de amor, de cuidado entre nós e os filhotes.

Todo ser humano vivo foi cuidado por outro ser humano vivo. Você está aqui hoje, vivo, porque alguém lhe cuidou.

Então esta pergunta dispara em mim o Brasil da amorosidade onde cada pessoa pode ser aceita como válida e pode aceitar as outras pessoas como válidas a partir de onde cada pessoas está.

TEM A OFERECER

Entendo que quando ele diz “oferecer” não está querendo dizer “entregar” ou seja, não está falando de oferecer petróleo, bauxita. De algo que, ao oferecer, perdemos.

Não se trata de uma operação de subtração, tirar daqui para colocar ali.

A pergunta nos fala do que podemos oferecer ao mundo sem tirarmos do Brasil, ou seja ele está falando de recursos inesgotáveis!

De algo que traga riqueza e prosperidade para o mundo como um todo, de modo que nós também possamos nos beneficiar disto.

Mas o que seria isto? Creio que aí está o coração da pergunta. O que temos em abundância e que possa gerar abundância para nós e para o mundo?

AO MUNDO

Aqui eu escuto o verbo VIVER!

Quando ouço MUNDO escuto a totalidade dos seres humanos, nossa antroposfera, que só pode se conservar viva no acoplamento estrutural com a biosfera, o planeta terra e todos seus sistemas de vida.

Ou seja, quem pergunta nos fala a partir da emoção de conservação de biosfera viva, povoada por uma antroposfera viva.

Escuto falar de um mundo vivo, com seres humanos vivos que se conservam vivos conservando o mundo em que vivem!

AGORA

Distinguo nesta palavra um sentimento de urgência. Ouço o verbo AGIR por trás desta palavra.

Agir neste momento de sua vida, ou seja, neste momento já estamos oferecendo algo ao mundo, neste encontro do TEDx em São Paulo.

Nosso passado é apenas uma história que contamos sobre nós mesmos! O relato das experiências não substitui a experiência.

Nosso futuro é uma série de suposições de possibilidades que desenhamos a partir da nossa explicação sobre nosso presente.

Vivemos sempre e somente neste eterno presente cambiante contínuo.

E neste tempo zero a pergunta começa a ser respondida pois estamos neste momento conservando uma rede de conversações aqui no TEDx São Paulo onde os seres humanos surgem uns aos outros como legítimos em seu viver cotidiano.

Então a pergunta é um convite para, olharmos para nós mesmos em nosso viver, percebendo algo que possa ser aceito pelo mundo e que faça do mundo um lugar de bem estar para que, inclusíve nós mesmos, possamos surgir na aceitação e respeito mútuo, a nós mesmos e à biosfera em que vivemos.

Somos humanos, e não robôs. Um robô tem pré-programada sua funcionalidade, sua finalidade. A vida humana não, ela ocorre como ocorre.

Nossas células criam a si mesmas e nesta autopoiese seguimos no fluir de nosso viver.

Quando olhamos ao nosso redor, ampliamos nossa visão e nos vemos além de qualquer automatismo.

Refletindo sobre nós mesmo, a partir da conservação de um respeito mútuo que se conserva na mestiçagem afetiva de nossa matriz relacional amorosa, podemos surgir no planeta terra como uma rede de conversações onde cada ser humano é legítimo em seu viver.

Vivemos nos apaixonando uns pelos outros neste país-continente a mais de quinhentos anos. Estivemos nos mestiçando em relações pessoais que ultrapassam as distinções de etnia ou matriz cultural.

Vivemos num fluir relacional que ainda conservamos e todo estrangeiro que aqui viver, ou com quem nos encontrarmos pelo mundo, está sujeito a se integrar a esta mestiçagem amorosa!

Não precisamos surgir para o mundo como um bloco econômico, um estado-nação impessoal e exigente.

Podemos estar, cada um de nós, participando desta rede de conversações mundial a partir de nosso viver como indivíduo, isso sim!

Minha filha Míriam tem dezenas de amigos de diversas partes do mundo em sua lista de redes sociais. E olha que ela nunca saiu do Brasil. Ela tem treze anos e sobre o que ela conversa? Ela fala de si e pergunta pelo outro. Apenas isso, que é, em síntese, tudo!

Somos humanos, e não robôs. Um robô tem pré-programada sua funcionalidade, sua finalidade. A vida humana não, ela ocorre como ocorre.

Nossas células criam a si mesmas e nesta autopoiese seguimos no fluir de nosso viver.

Quando olhamos ao nosso redor, ampliamos nossa visão e nos vemos além de qualquer automatismo.

Para isso basta dar um passo ao lado e observar a si mesmo em seu viver. Perceber-se agindo e falando a partir das coerências operacionais com sua própria história.

Veja-se interagindo com o mundo a cada momento no fluir das escolhas que foram sendo feitas em sua vida circunstancialmente da melhor maneira possível e que te trouxeram numa deriva até este seu momento presente.

Nesta aceitação de você mesmo pergunte-se:

Quero querer o que quero? Quero conservar o que conservo?

[SILÊNCIO]

Nesta visão ampliada digo a todos, muito obrigado pela atenção!

A very very emotional TED Talk by the Malwaian kid who turned to science to solve his village’s problems during the drought year. An important lesson to learn – Don’t give up on your dreams. He had never seen an aeroplane or slept in a hotel :|

The first talk shows how overwhelmed he is by the media, glamour, publicity, lighting and everything. He is tongue tied and nervous. He sums it up in his second talk

“That day my English lost. I wanted to vomit.”

His first TED appearance.

When he returned to TED again.

If you are reading this blog, I’d like to say:

Be thankful to God for all the opportunities you’ve had in life. Don’t give up on dreams, and never say you can’t do it.

Cheers

Photo by Toobydoo

It is funny how sometimes ideas comes from different directions and connect in ways you could not have guessed they will before.

A few months ago I went to have dinner with two colleagues of mine from my AGSM MBA class. We had a wonderful dinner and an even better intellectual discussion. I don’t really remember how we got to the subject by I mentioned Larry Lessig’s talk on TED about User Generated Content (how the law is choking creativity) where he claims that our society is turning kids into criminal by illegalizing activities that are natural to them.

A few days ago I gave a session to a number of people from our Public Speaking & Debating Club about modern techniques in presentation delivery. One of the examples I used to illustrate my point and stimulate the discussion was the same lecture by Lessig from TED which brought the ideas back to my mind.

This morning, as I was going over my Google Reader reading list, I came by Seth Godin’s post titled: “Teaching the market a lesson“. Here is a small sample:

Some book publishers don’t like the Kindle. Either they’re afraid of it or they’ve crunched the numbers and they don’t like what they see. (Some days, 95% of the top selling Kindle titles are free… demonstrating that digital goods with zero marginal cost and plentiful substitutes tend to move to zero in price).

Worried about the medium, they hold back, delay or even refuse to support it.

A few minutes after that, I got an e-mail from my dear friends Ajaya, one of my   colleagues from the dinner a few months ago. This is what he wrote in the e-mail:

Remember talking about illegal downloads and what the fact that almost all kids break the law means to society. Finally, it seems the music industry is figuring it out.

And the email had a link to an article from The Economist titled: “How to sink pirates“. The article describes how the music industry is finally starting to relinquish its fight against piracy, starting to use a model of streaming music, gaining money from advertisements. And it ends with this conclusion:

All of this offers a lesson for other types of media, such as films and video games. Piracy thrives because it satisfies an unmet demand. The best way to discourage it is to offer a diverse range of attractive, legal alternatives. The music industry has taken a decade to work this out, but it has now done so. Other industries should benefit from its experience—and follow its example.

Suddenly, it dawned on me. The points just seemed to connect. These lessons keep repeating themselves:

1. The world is changing. You can jump on the boat. But you cannot stop it. The past will always try to stop the future. Be it the music industry, the book publishing industry or shop owners in 19^th century France. They will fail. The answer to change is change and not more of the same.
2. Peter Drucker wrote that you can never know how a product that was created in one field could be used in another field. Products and technologies will continue to move across industries destroying business models. The answer will not be found in barricading industries and business models, but in inventing new business models.
3. “Free” is changing the world in more ways than we can imagine.
4. Law, legal proceedings and fear can only take you so far. Options, Transparency and self fulfillment will win eventfully. It might take time, but it will happen.

You think that the smart people running some of these industries would have learned these lessons by now.

Elad

On February 28, 2008 scholar of comparative religion and prolific author Karen Armstrong won the TED Prize (http://www.ted.com) and made a wish: for help creating, launching and propagating a Charter for Compassion. Since that day, thousands of people have contributed to the process and on November 12, 2009 the Charter was unveiled to the world.

In February 2009, the Council of Conscience, a multi-faith, multi-national group of religious thinkers and leaders, met in Geneva to review and sort through the world’s contributions and to craft the final Charter. (You can read more about the individual members of the Council at http://charterforcompassion.org/learn/council/)

The Charter for Compassion reads:

The principle of compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves. Compassion impels us to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures, to dethrone ourselves from the centre of our world and put another there, and to honour the inviolable sanctity of every single human being, treating everybody, without exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect.

It is also necessary in both public and private life to refrain consistently and empathically from inflicting pain. To act or speak violently out of spite, chauvinism, or self-interest, to impoverish, exploit or deny basic rights to anybody, and to incite hatred by denigrating others—even our enemies—is a denial of our common humanity. We acknowledge that we have failed to live compassionately and that some have even increased the sum of human misery in the name of religion.

We therefore call upon all men and women ~ to restore compassion to the centre of morality and religion ~ to return to the ancient principle that any interpretation of scripture that breeds violence, hatred or disdain is illegitimate ~ to ensure that youth are given accurate and respectful information about other traditions, religions and cultures ~ to encourage a positive appreciation of cultural and religious diversity ~ to cultivate an informed empathy with the suffering of all human beings—even those regarded as enemies.

We urgently need to make compassion a clear, luminous and dynamic force in our polarized world. Rooted in a principled determination to transcend selfishness, compassion can break down political, dogmatic, ideological and religious boundaries. Born of our deep interdependence, compassion is essential to human relationships and to a fulfilled humanity. It is the path to enlightenment, and indispensible to the creation of a just economy and a peaceful global community.

http://www.charterforcompassion/share/about

The Charter is underscored by the conviction that “compassion manifests itself in the world not by thinking but by doing” and the Charter itself is accompanied by a number of suggested ways to participate in both spreading the word and participating in events. More information on participation can be gained at http://www.charterforcompassion.org/share

Monks Without Borders is very proud to affirm the Charter for Compassion and urges all to do likewise and to unswervingly apply its principles in all aspects of daily life. Please visit the website at http://www.charterforcompassion.org for more information about the history and development of this beautiful initiative, to read inspiring stories from all over the globe, and to find out what you can do to make the ideas contained in the Charter a living reality for all.

To listen to Karen Armstrong’s wish (highly recommended), visit the TED site at http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/karen_armstrong_makes_her_ted_prize_wish_the_charter_for_compassion.html

A further speech given by Karen just a few weeks ago, and which looks at the role of religion in the 21^st century can be accessed at http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/karen_armstrong_let_s_revive_the_golden_rule.html

I learned how to put in hardwood floors!

I have been enjoying bouts of productivity, alternately working on hardwood floors, writing a course for UniED, and completing a freelance writing contract!

Em is still crazy and hilarious, and has become so attached to being “little chef”, that she is insulted if she is not integrated into the cooking of meals. We’ve been clearing out the fridge, freezer, and pantry, creating meals out of nothing! I’ve been learning a lot of little simple cooking things – how to roast stuff so it doesn’t burn in the oven, how to make “just-right” porridge, how to make pumpkin soup out of a pumpkin, and on and on. Lumby seems to have more time available than in big cities, so I find that I have time to keep abreast of current events and the world news, as well as maintain my regular reading of interesting books and Holy Texts. I’ll admit that I’ve come very close, about three or four times now, to writing some social commentary blog posts – but I find my writing breaking down when I do! For example, after completing my degree, I felt I should write about my concerns of the lack of standard in Psychology – and how reliance on mean behaviors as a standard is compromising the field…but i soon realized this needs to be done over like 2 books or a giant PhD – and even Lumby doesn’t have enough time for that!

Emily explores architecture

Then there’s architecture. Em got this ingenious little game that’s like manual Tetris. It’s actually quite simple and entertaining. Essentially, you are given sets of pieces to work with, and have to try and make squares or rectangles out of them. It’s called Katamino, and has inspired us both to be architects. I once had a CRAZY dream, where my life played out before me: I got married, had kids, lived on an island, fought with my wife, and ultimately, became an architect. The coolest part is that I remember the designs for the biggest project. It was a ginormous building that was self-contained, and was a prototype for housing on the moon! haha. So maybe I’ll go into architecture and design moon housing…or maybe Em will, who knows?

Art lessons form the master

She may also end up, like Ted’s first son sky, being an artist. She draws and colors several pictures a day, and she really shows signs of steady improvement (without the aid of instructors!). Here I caught her getting a rare lesson in drawing skills from Ted, who is himself an accomplished artiste.

Besides these activities out of which daily life in Lumby is made, I’ve been living another life on the inside! It’s unreal how people can transport themselves to different times and places and situations in their own minds. Internally, I’ve been visiting and revisiting 19th century Persia. The Bab wrote incredible works, and I’ve been reading what I can find translated into English, as well as reading stories from the history of the Baha’i Faith. It’s really interesting, and refreshing for my soul! Between stories from the fierce early believers of the faith, and the current civilization-building perspective of some Baha’i writers, I’m drawing loads of inspiration to act for positive change up in this humpity bumpity. The positive motivating influence of religion is astounding – even when I just look at my own life! And what other people see as the destructive influences of religion, are, in my opinion, perversions of the spirit of religion; abuses of belief which religion evinces in the hearts of people.

The pharaoh beard progresses.

Though my mother despised my beard, I’ve decided to throw all caution to the wind, and just grow for it. aha..ha. Till next time,

PEACE!

Ueli Gegenschatz has passed away. Ueli loved what he did and knew the risk. It is a sad day for people who dare to dream and push things to the edge. My thoughts are with Ueli’s loved ones and friends.

This TED talk by Ken Robinson from 2006 is about creativity, how to nurture it and what our school system does to it. Insightful. Very Funny

Some great quotes from the talk:

“If you’re not prepared to be wrong you will never come up with anything original.”
“We stigmatize mistakes.”
“We are educating people out of the creative capacities”
“We don’t grow into creativity, we grow out of it. Or rather we get educated out of it”