These TED talks are great, so I am going to start watching them all, and post my favourite ones here (and invite everyone else to post their favourites)


Nick Bostrom: Humanity's biggest problems aren't what you think they are
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/44


Ray Kurzweil: How technology's accelerating power will transform us
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/38


Richard Dawkins: The universe is queerer than we can suppose
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/98


Jeff Hawkins: Brain science is about to fundamentally change computing
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/125


Craig Venter: A voyage of DNA, genes and the sea
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/6

And there are many more to come I am sure. I will add some of Dan Dennets talks and other Dawkins talks soon too.

Wow, I didn't know Aubrey had a talk. Wow these talks are impressive.

Aubrey de Grey: Why we age and how we can avoid it
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/39

I check the site every so often to see the new ones.

Yeah, the Aubrey one is a classic...

Also, you mentioned one of Dawkins' talks, but he has a couple: http://www.ted.com/index.php/speakers/view/id/93

Dennett has a couple as well: http://www.ted.com/index.php/speakers/view/id/92 (one of them in response to the talk by Rick Warren, who went directly after the talk by Michael Shermer; All of which are good ones, too)

Ideas Worth Spreading: Hans Rosling. Very good compilation and visualization of the real trends in the world vs preconceived notions.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=26...=TED+talk&hl=en

I really enjoyed that one Maestro. Best graphing software ever!

Indeed, a really good way to present data. Loved the instant replay, heh.

Yeah, that is a good one maestro. I had seen the guy do a more detailed presentation on the same thing in a Google Tech Talk before:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=79...617766640098677
and was blown away when I saw it.

(Note: Google Tech Talks also have lots of interesting ones as well to watch, in addition to Ted Talks.)

Here is Aubrey's Ted Talk from 2006, btw. I hadn't noticed, but the above one Aegist linked to was his 2005 one:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=38...943059984264388

I uploaded it to Google Vids awhile back, but forgot I had done so until I was browsing through my account today. That is a bit strange that they wouldn't have it up on the actual TED website.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/90
The next digital revolution: Prefabrication. Making computers make things.

Well I've done it. I've actually watched all of the interesting looking videos at ted.com :)

Here's another interesting one:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/58

not that it is especially interesting compared to many of the others, but i just watched it, and it was also good, so theres a link to it.

One thing I realised from watching all of these videos, is that these videos are more than just 'Cool videos', they really are an opportunity to look into some elite secret society. You watch these videos, and u are literally seeing what the people who 'control the world' are looking at.

The introduction does say 1000 remarkable people gather to share their ideas, and I sort of shrugged that off to some extent until i started to really understand that after watching all of the videos, they really are a community of people who get together to learn about the most innovative things happening in society, the most problematic thigns facing society, the most brilliant things individuals have done etc. And the fact that these videos are now completely free and visible on the web for anyone to watch, it really is such a powerful thing for the world to have available to them. it is like we are being given free access to the most secret "Stonecutters" like club on earth.

"Who rigs every oscars night? We do!"

I'd love to see what Aubrey's experience of TED was like. I find that most of the talks are very maintstream acceptable sort of topics, just people talking about something cool they have created or else talking about saving the children etc. Aubrey's talk was quite different from the rest, he seemed more like he was fighting with the Audience. Not that they demonstrate any fight, but moreso in the way he gave the talk, which I am sure is crafted from experience which states 'People don't believe this yet. You have to convince them'. Probably just a true at TED as anywhere else, but I am curious what his experience were of the rest of the weekend after giving his talk. Whether peopel were receptive to his arguments and ideas or resistent or what?

Because if any audience would be open to extreme ideas, TED audience would be a good starting position i would think....

And here is the "Will we live a lot longer" theme:
http://www.ted.com/themes/view/id/44

So one of their entire conferences was dedicated to this topic.

I looked into going to one of the TED conferences one time, but it is almost impossible to get in to those things. I am glad they put them up on the web.

Well said. The true leaders in todays world aren't politicians or tribal chieftains but those pushing the boundaries of innovation. Every problem has a solution. It takes courage to challenge the status quo and the ancient memes but many of us instinctively know that we can and will do better. These talks are great for the next generation of up-and-coming problem solvers and innovators. Being able to see and hear about various techniques and concepts across the many disciplines combined with online collaboration and learning tools will drive emergent innovation much more rapidly than the 20th century's scientific journals, exclusive conferences and ass-backwards education system did.

And the fact is, now, more than any other time in history, ANYONE can join this elite by just being creative/innovative/clever. Anyone could have made Google. Anyone could have made wikipedia.... there really is no hard boundary stopping people from entering this circle of elite. In that way, there is nothing 'elite' about it.

Just create something which helps the world... LOL. Easy as that. And that is probably the best thing about it.

There have been some new ones added this month http://www.ted.com/talks that are pretty neat, including:

The one on regenerating the body by Alan Russell:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/142

The animation of a cell:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/147

Yes, TED talks are the shit. As Maestro949 notes, this really isn't so much about clandestine Stone Cutters deciding to give the public a taste of their crack cocaine. Instead, it really just goes to demonstrate the power of openness.

Although it doesn't exist yet, one of my 'projects' (I have lots of these that I will never follow through with because I am too ADD) is to create a University based off of the idea of open source education. Taking things like Connexions and Wikipedia a step further to assign degree credit for attending (either in person or online or through the metaverse mashup of the two) seminars, individual lectures, etc. Credit is weighted socially, 2.0 style. For technical/professional studies, companies and other schools can create or subscribe to 'lenses' indicating acceptable seminars, lectures, courses, etc. for their personal requirements of applicants.

Case and point: It's ridiculous that mathematics is taught on a 'semester' or year course basis. Clearly, while there are certain subjects that fit well together and empirically build off of others, defining a specific unit of material is severely limiting.

Other reasons for such a system are immediately obvious, such as encouraging cross-disciplinary work, allowing accelerated or limited courseload, providing specialization of pedagogical labor, etc.

Aaaaanyway, TED talks are super-neat! One of the things I've realized by devouring these videos and other conference videos, such as google tech talks or MIT's h2O symposium or lecture videos, is that production quality matters. I've started, recently, giving voice lessons, and one of the first things I've tried to impress upon my students is the Poe literary philosophy: Everything for effect. Edgar A. Poe-t was a powerful writer, and an even more powerful critic, specifically because he knew that attention to detail was crucial to achieving powerful art. Specifically, use everything in your medium to achieve the desired result in your subject (thus is the essence of art!) Education, too, is an art. We are excited by TED talks, in part, because the production quality of the seminar series is phenomenal.

Anyway, I wish google's talks were better produced. They bring in such cool speakers (even if I can't understand what the heck half of them are talking about). In time, this will happen (I've noticed more recent google tech talks have some smoother edges than their older brothers), not just with google but with the entire education movement.

It's just sad to see one of my role models, a rare professor, pushing so hard within traditional academia, probably herself to be completely left in the dust of more adaptive systems ('silicon valley').

Susan Savage-Rumbaugh: Apes that write, start fires and play Pac-Man

--If you haven't seen it yet, then you should.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/76

The bonobo video is really cool, but I don't think there is anything all that earth shattering about it, and on the surface I have to disagree with the researcher a bit (about the cultural aspect). I guess I would expect a species that seems to be half way between chimp and human to have some human traits...some human capabilities.

Bees have language too. They use "dances" and chemical signals. If we learned how to replicate those signals we could "communicate" with bees. But bees are not on the same level as humans as far as intelligence and consciousness goes. Neither are bonobos. Bonobos are certainly closer to humans, and have the ability absorb human culture, but our culture is not what makes us different and more advanced than bonobos, it is mostly because our brains are different.

I just watched the Bonobos video. Mind, of course there are vast biological differences between humans and bonobos that contribute to human culture. But to what extent, also, does culture affect biology. Say as a species bonobos learn to use stone tools or create fire. Their biology begins to change reciprocally.

What's truly exciting to me is the fact that, in reality, the 'intellectual elites' have just as great a difference with the average human as the average human does with bonobos. That our two species' cultures can communicate and learn from one another is deeply encouraging. Remember how biologists are starting to bridge the disconnect between sociology and biology: memetics. Although the analogy isn't 100 percent accurate, what we're essentially doing with these bonobos is altering their 'DNA.' I know this is confusing, but I hope you know what I mean.