jameswang.net » TED

TED Thursdays: Eric Giler – demos wireless electricity

James Wang — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 15:05:14 +0000

Seriously, I love TED. I could watch this stuff all day if I could. Here’s another awesome one. I’ve always been fascinated by how far ahead of his time Nikola Tesla was. In this video, Eric Giler shows wireless electricity that he dubs as wi-tricity. It’s pretty neat. I feel proud to see that the first and most easily modified phone to use witricity was the T-Mobile Google Android G1. Yeah, the iphone could too and so could the nokia, but with silly plastic backpack looking sleeves. Weak. Well, check it out. He actually wirelessly powers a television first before he even gets to the phones.

TED Thursdays: PW Singer – on military robots and the future of war

James Wang — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 14:13:10 +0000

Wow, I would be so mad being someone having to fight America in a war. He has a good point though about some of the ramifications of robotic arms races. He talks about globalization and how that effects things. So an american soldier is using a robot to fight a war with hardware from China and software from India? Opensource warfare? Al Queda 2.0? Very interesting talk. He doesn’t talk about it but, frankly war has always had some commercialized aspects such as mercenaries in ancient times, but that’s at a whole new level these days with Black water, and the like. Some recent games and media highlighted the moral issues of mercenary life and loyalties or lack there of. Along that line, war is becoming more and more like a game. Makes me think of Ender’s Game. Great book. If you don’t have it and want it . . . feel free to buy it at the link below. It might actually give me a small kick back enough for 1/20th a coffee. hook me up.

TED Thursdays: Rebecca Saxe: How we read each other’s minds

James Wang — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 00:42:07 +0000

I really liked this video. Basically, she asks the question of what biologically helps us with judging other people’s actions. It is really amusing the experiment she runs with the pirate finger puppets and the children to show how child development of moral judgements of others develops over time. I think you’ll really like this, even if neuroscience is not your thing:

TED Thursdays: Tim Ferriss – Smash fear, learn anything

James Wang — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 19:35:16 +0000

I thought overall he has some very motivational things to say. A lot of what I got from him is, if you are scared, ask yourself why and what’s the worst that could happen. Learn from the best. Reading some other people’s comments, he might over simplify some things in the sense that they may not be exactly reproducible. Specifically, he learns japanese, buuuuut he says it was because he had a kanji poster that helped him narrow his problem space. Having a poster on my wall of stuff might help but the fact that he was also living IN Japan AND living WITH a japanese family probably helped a little too. I do agree with narrowing and breaking down your problem space though and also that attitude is a huge part of achievement and success. He’s got a great amount of attitude, achievement and success.

Like his talk? Check out his book:

TED Thursdays – Bonnie Bassler – How Bacteria Talk

James Wang — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 01:28:22 +0000

Bonnie Bassler has a fantastic way of painting bacteria as if they were the tiny men from Gulliver’s Travels. I think I was just as interested in the squid she talks about as I was in bacterial communication. She talks about how the squid holds the bacteria in a special compartment and has detectors on its back to figure out how much light is coming down during the night and to let out more light or less from the glowing bacteria based on the amount of light detected from its back. Basically it is the stealth bomber of the sea.

Here’s her profile at Princeton:
http://www.molbio.princeton.edu/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=27

TED Thursdays: Dave Eggers’ wish: Once Upon a School

James Wang — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 03:34:11 +0000

Ok, I’ve been on a real education kick lately with videos, so here’s another. The main idea was starting a tutoring center for writing and homework. I love his idea of a pirate store that you have to walk through that leads to the tutoring area, and all the other crazy store examples showing that it isn’t school, its something completely different. I think the idea of tutoring is powerful and what he says about one on one time and how it transformed the life of the boy who was addicted to video games is a great story.

Here’s a link to the organization he talks about:
http://onceuponaschool.org/

They’ve also got a facebook page for this:
http://www.facebook.com/onceuponaschool

Like his talk? Buy his book:

TED Thursdays: Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity

James Wang — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 04:26:01 +0000

One of my favorite parts of this video is where he talks about the story of the little girl that couldn’t seem to sit still. I’m sure just reading that you are already thinking “yeah, another ADHD kid”, but its worth watching to see what they ended up doing and what she ended up becoming. Sobering to think about in how we deal with children and what we see in them.

Like his talk? Check out two of his books:

There’s more than one Ken Robinson on wikipedia so here’s his wiki entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Robinson_(British_author)

TED Thursdays – Matthew Childs – 9 life lessons from rock climbing

James Wang — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 04:36:59 +0000

The pictures are cool but more importantly these are great points, and worth hearing him elaborate on. Here are the points.

1. Don’t let go
2. Hesitation is bad
3. Have a plan
4. The move is the end
5. Know how to rest
6. Fear sucks
7. Opposites are good
8. Strength does not equal success
9. Know how to let go

Even though you now know what he’ll be talking about, I encourage you to watch and hear the whole thing.