Domain: ted.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to ted.com.
Comments · 1,653
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Green Building
I don't know what your company is planning to build currently but they should look at Green buildings like the amazing Heifer International - Green Building. I have visited it and know someone who was show the various costs month by month running the building and he was amazed at how much they saved on energy, water and all the rest.
The EPA has various funding options I believe for Green Buildings and some places may well offer Tax break incentives to go green. In the long run a well designed Green building pays for itself. It is also a good idea to have good Natural lighting if you can manage it, the Heifer International building is beautifully designed with this in mind.
Another thing to consider is indoor air quality, I remember there was a TED Talk by Kamal Meattle: How to grow fresh air depending where your building is built and the air quality this can be amazingly good for everyone in the office.
I hope you find this useful even if it wasn't exactly what you were seeking. -
Ted talk on thishttp://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html
Career analyst Dan Pink examines the puzzle of motivation, starting with a fact that social scientists know but most managers don't: Traditional rewards aren't always as effective as we think. Listen for illuminating stories -- and maybe, a way forward.
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Re:Autonomy, mastery, purpose
At least give credit when saying "Autonomy, mastery, purpose." It's from Dan Pink. Here's his TED talk. http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html
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Happened to me in high school.
Happened to me in high school.
I blocked at least a dozen AIM accounts a night for weeks (maybe months); I can be fortunate there was no "twitter" then, nor this "book of faces", and that smartphones were this exciting new thing Handspring was just introducing to the market that nobody could afford.
Then I got two unsolicited copies of the TSR novel "Death of the Dragon" in the mail - this may have been an error by a small book distributor I did business with, so I can't be sure -- but "Dragon" was part of the IM name I used at the time, and I could never be sure. I still have both copies, and I haven't read either. I don't actually think I even touched either after I put them on the bookshelf those years ago.
Then the fella proved himself grossly incompetent, and threatened to beat me to death. In a public library, where I "was", he was "behind" me. I was sitting at a desk, at home, with a baseball bat within arms' reach. I mocked him for the rest of the night, and then it ended. He failed. Epically. His confrontation... wasn't.
But I'm not in high school any more. I spent the next couple years reading books like "Shooting To Live" and "Kill or Get Killed". I took years of aikido, tae kwon do, and studied a few forms of swordplay for a few more years. I carry a gun, and enough ammo to get through the statistically average civilian-defense gunfight, and then a little more. Sometimes, more than one. I'm seriously considering building some ghetto-but-effective body armor. (Steel rifle plates went out of style because they're heavy and unconcealable, but they offer an awful lot of protection). I don't carry a gun because I expect to get in a fight; I carry because I don't expect to get in a fight. If I expected one, I'd simply send a SWAT team in my stead, and sip Starbucks in the mobile command center. (No police department takes documentable, documented conspiracy to commit murder lightly in this age of lawsuits!) I don't sit with my back to the door at restaurants any more, I know what phrases like "condition yellow" mean, and I look for the bulge of a poorly-concealed weapon now when someone walks into the gas station while I'm fueling up.
Fortunately, for the most part, I don't mind living like this. In practice, 98% of the time, it just means I can make unplanned trips to the gun range without going home for weapons. And - unlike most liberals - I know a secret: The shooting sports are fun. I hesitate to say it, but it's a blast to put 20 shots into a single hole not any bigger than a nickel; mastery for its own sake is one of the most rewarding things.
But somewhere, deep down, I know and cannot forget: I found this thing I enjoy because someone threatened to kill me in a public place, in front of witnesses, and get away with it. And other geeks may not get through it as well as I did. I may enjoy the trappings, but I wouldn't want to put anyone through the scary parts on the way to where I am today.
Let us not mistake this for an isolated incident; it is not. Let us not mistake it for something new; it is not. Let us not allow this to happen again; it should not. -
Accoustics
One thing you most certainly wouldn't want to do, is to add more noise; it will only make you tired. I'm pretty sure you should be able to fix the problem with proper insulation. In fact, that's the only way to stop sound from coming in. Once it's in, there's basically only one thing you could do to make it less annoying, and that's to improve the acoustics of your rooms. Think things like carpets, acoustic panels, smart furniture placement, removing or covering up reflective surfaces, possibly even bass traps. Goal is to stop standing waves that amplify certain frequencies (the "room modes") and to lower reverberation.
This will get you two things: the sound coming in is amplified less by your rooms and the sound that originates indoors will be much clearer, standing out from the outdoor noise much more. If you are serious about solving this problem, I suggest you have an acoustics expert look at the problem and do some measurements. Often some very simple cheap measures can improve the situation tremendously.)
Slightly relevant TED video claiming that such noise can actually kill you: http://www.ted.com/talks/julian_treasure_why_architects_need_to_use_their_ears.html
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Show them Clary Shirky's TED Talk
As luck would have it, yesterday's featured TED Talk was on the importance of version control systems -- specifically GIT -- in non-technical applications.
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One DVM per child
How about giving away a free voltmeter to any student from a 3rd world nation who passes the edX course "Circuits and Electronics"?
6002x "Circuits and Electronics", an online version of the MIT introductory electronics course. This was an exact copy of the MIT course, taught by an MIT professor, and was just as hard as the original course. Same material, same difficulty, online format.
Some of the 7,000 graduates were from 3rd world nations. For example, this article talks about a class of high-school students in Mongolia:
I'm reminded of William Kamkwamba, who built a wind-powered generator and was able to bring electricity to his village. His Ted talk is pretty interesting.
Mr. Kamkwamba had nothing. He built his windmill from scratch after learning the principles of electricity from books in the local library. He built his own circuit breaker by winding wire onto nails driven into wood.
His task would have been so much easier if he could have measured continuity, or the output voltage of his generator.
Most of the modern world is based on electronics - measurements, actions, communications, and so on. Having the tools and understanding would allow people to repair broken equipment and machinery, to take pieces from ewaste and hook them together in new ways, and generally have better life opportunities.
Supplying 5,000 students (a generous estimate) would cost only $10,000.
Here is the contact page for edX.
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Re:OMFG
The emotional reaction is exactly what Apple advertises to. It's intentional to trigger that particular area of your brain.
Simon Sinek talks about it during this 18 minute talk:
http://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action.html -
Re:It's already out there...
Absolutely. And for those who haven't seen it, this line in thinking is put at it's best in this TED talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/sam_richards_a_radical_experiment_in_empathy.html
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Re:Unfortunately...
Riots are infectious. You can easily generate a whole mob to riot with some encouragement.
This short lecture shows how easily the infection spreads: http://www.ted.com/talks/derek_sivers_how_to_start_a_movement.html
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I'd take it with a pinch of salt...
Granted how scientists just LOVE to give new names to things that are even slightly different (eg. Dinosaurs and how Jack Horner put them to shame).
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The best TEDTALK ever on this ...
Please, have none of us seen the Kevin Slavin TEDTALK on this? I had my whole analytical team sitting in my office to watch this one (I'm the mathematician in the group). As a Republican activist I argue that HFT distorts the free-market purpose of the stock markets in a way that violates basic assumptions about the market, and as such can then push to tax short term capital gains at a punishingly high level without "raising taxes" because supporting free-market principles trumps (sorry) supporting lower taxes.
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Re:So Start Global Gardening RiotsSounds like the idea behind the TED talk given by Pam Warhurst: http://www.ted.com/talks/pam_warhurst_how_we_can_eat_our_landscapes.html
Very interesting, and definitely worth a watch if you have a spare 15 mins.
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Re:Gee, How Much Google Paid For This
Google and every other advertiser know that, when given the choice to opt in on something, you likely won't. I could type a wall of text, but if you have a few minutes you could watch this TED talk about opt-in vs opt-out.
To sum up: you are not really in control of your decisions
http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_ariely_asks_are_we_in_control_of_our_own_decisions.html
The talk albeit interesting in actually irrelevant to this discussion. opt-in and opt-out are discussed, but only in the instance where complex decisions have to be made [organ transplants after death], and spoiler! they go with the option of least resistance. Which is vastly different for a trial choice everyone would make [if they knew was there; knew how to change it; had the confidence to change it], because nobody likes advertisement.
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Re:Gee, How Much Google Paid For This
Google and every other advertiser know that, when given the choice to opt in on something, you likely won't. I could type a wall of text, but if you have a few minutes you could watch this TED talk about opt-in vs opt-out.
To sum up: you are not really in control of your decisions
http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_ariely_asks_are_we_in_control_of_our_own_decisions.html
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Re:Video?!?
There was, but it was only 68 attoseconds long, so you must have missed it.
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Video?!?
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Re:I've actually been waiting for this.
That's my point with all of this. It started with MySpace, no Facebook and there will be others. Remember that old model of "who pays for all this content?"
well it's the information gleaned from all that nice personal data that people gladly hand over. In 10 years there will be two possible outcomes. 1) People will suddenly wake up and say that their privacy matters or 2) Facebook will be able to tell you and everybody else what you had for Breakfast, when you last fucked your wife and how much money is in your bank account.I prefer option 1, always and keeping the information in 2 to myself and those I chose to share it with. Fundamentally the technology has outstripped our privacy rights and it is time we all started caring about that because if you look at this you can see how some innocuous information can lead to oppression and tyranny. Governments know this and passively use this to their advantage now and when they want to flip the switch they'll be able to crack down on any anti-government movement for "public safety." The beauracrats in DC will just go to Congress and make a "We need to collect and monitor the people for safety" and the dipshit congressmen will open the coffers.
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that's just stupid
What is it with this trend of "the younger they start the better"! In Sweden kids don't start learning how to read or write until they are 7 yrs old. Heck, he's 6 and it's basically still daycare! Im a brit but ive certainly come around to the idea that it's not that big a deal that they don't start school at 5 yrs old like in the UK. I see that even Swedes manage to get PhD's and that Sweden is generally well respected as far as international science goes. I suppose it didn't hurt them that they started later than other countries?
To finish, let me point you to a talk by my current hero: Ken Robinson, who raises some very significant points about our educational model:
http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html
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Re:Not worried.
Yes, everyone could theoretically be followed and logged today. Currently, that is far too time consuming.
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Re:Good
I have no problem with a living author reaping the benefits of writing a bestseller for his entire natural life, and his descendants for another 14 after that.
Copyright does this and much, much more. And that's also the root of the problem. Before Disney, copyright granted authors protection for 28 years. I’m fine with that. The problem is now it’s pushing 100 years. This stifles our culture and innovation.
For example, Star Wars was released in 1978, so it should have gone into the public domain by 2005. With existing laws, George Lucas retains exclusive rights to butcher the SW universe until 2072!!!!! 95 YEARS! Imagine what new aspiring authors could do with his work, instead of the sterile Jar Jar crap that Lucas served us, recently? Thank you, copyright.
Are you telling me your favorite authors would not have created their works, if it was not protected for 70 years after their death?!? The copyright system is designed make companies, like Disney and RIAA, rich at the expense of our freedom.
The irony is Disney made its fortune by ripping off the great works of others. Walt Disney was a master of this. At its origins, Mickey Mouse was a parody of the Buster Keaton film Steamboat Bill Jr. And almost all of their great work since then has continued this tradition of copying. Just to name a few: Pinocchio, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Alice in Wonderland, Jungle Book, Sleep Hollow, Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid,
With the RIAA, SOPA and Courtney Love’s excellent essay on how they screw over artists should give you an idea of how this industry works. http://www.salon.com/2000/06/14/love_7/
Young artists need the freedom to remake and remix. The current laws prevent them from using anything from their generation. This is wrong and needs to be fixed.
Finally, Larry Lessig explains the problems with CC much more eloquently then I can at this TED talk:
http://www.ted.com/talks/larry_lessig_says_the_law_is_strangling_creativity.html -
Re:Another cheesy attempt...
Other countries have been doing it for years...
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Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control....
Your take is a generalization, and overly simplistic, though so is the idea that simply reducing the death rate will curb population growth. The facts are totally uncontroversial. Girls education:
http://www.populationmedia.org/issues/womens-empowerment/girls-education/
is the main way that the birth rate declines, that and access to family planning, for those women once they understand what the options are.
We're going to be 10 billion humans by 2050, and most of the population models predict a stable population after that. Provided we can hold it all together that long... Our systems for production, government and education will need to change quite a bit to work in a world with a steady-state population. (read: a steady-state economy)
Here's a fantastic explanation of the current models on population:
http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_growth.html
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Re:Not vision
I've seen some nice advances in the field lately, like the ones in this TED talk. I understood that this was a first implementation of this technology, but you're saying it's more the old "wire a low resolution light sensor directly to the optic nerve and see what happens" that people have been doing for years?
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Re:As if...
In exactly what way is "scaling the view associated with the event object based on receiving the two or more input points" not "pinch to zoom?" I'm not defending the patent - there's more than ample obviousness and prior art. The link you gave simply describes ways around the claim to "pinch to zoom," it doesn't disagree at all.
The claim very clearly does describe "pinch to zoom." To say that it doesn't is simply disingenuous. That's different than saying it's a valid claim.
Oh, BTW, the link's counter-example, scrolling with two fingers, doesn't work with Google Maps, it causes a change in pitch instead of scrolling (at least it does on my non-Samsung, Android phone, running ICS). -
An interesting Ted Talk on wireless power
http://www.ted.com/talks/eric_giler_demos_wireless_electricity.html -- And considering that Tesla was thinking of this stuff in his time, I say it's overdue. Maybe profanity will become archaic simultaneously with wires.
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Re:Why all the butthurt?
I have no problem with finding Samsung in violation of Apple's design patents. Their copying there was pretty blatant. It's not "round cornered rectangles," as is often said by those who can't be bothered to understand the issues.
The utility patents (bouncing stops and "pinch to zoom"), OTOH, had very easily found prior art. -
Re:How is it even possible to innovate these days?
While the iPhone clearly was innovative, a lot of the ideas behind it become obvious once you assume that you're going to be using a capacitive (multitouch) touchscreen. Apple released the iPhone in the early days of capacitive touch, and so they deservedly took over the market.
Here's a video of Steve Jobs demonstrating multitouch. At 33:30, he demonstrates a pinch-to-zoom gesture, which he uses to zoom in on a photo. The audience love it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uW-E496FXg
Here's a video of Jeff Han demonstrating multitouch. At about 2:45, he demonstrates a pinch-to-zoom gesture, which he uses to zoom in on a photo. The audience love it.
http://www.ted.com/talks/jeff_han_demos_his_breakthrough_touchscreen.html
Note that Jeff Han's video was filmed in February 2006, which is one year before Steve Jobs' iPhone announcement.
Once you decide that you're going to put a capacitive touchscreen on a phone, then swiping and pinching really do become obvious. If Apple had invented multitouch, then their patent claims might be fair, but there's clearly prior art on this.
Unlike Samsung, HTC didn't just blindly copy the iPhone. It's hard to claim they violated trade dress, and so it should be a lot harder for Apple to win this case.
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Re:2nd Amendment
Not that I necessarily disagree, but you should go see this TED talk for some food for thought on this. The speaker has the point that if you enforce transparency, you're basically putting mistrust forward as your main agenda. And if you do that, how are you ever going to get decent people to run for office. He also has this anecdote:
But also don't forget, any unveiling is also veiling. [Regardless of] how transparent our governments want to be, they're going to be selectively transparent. In a small country that could be my country, but could be also your country, they took a decision -- it is a real case story -- that all of the governmental decisions, discussions of the council of ministers, were going to be published on the Internet 24 hours after the council discussions took place. And the public was extremely all for it.
So I had the opportunity to talk to the prime minister, why he made this decision. He said, "Listen, this is the best way to keep the mouths of my ministers closed. Because it's going to be very difficult for them to dissent knowing that 24 hours after this is going to be on the public space, and this is in a certain way going to be a political crisis."
To not be mistrust, it somehow has to come from the inside of the system.
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TED talk by Rob Reid
This story made me think of the excellent TED talk by Rob Reid, on copyright math. It's hilarious! http://www.ted.com/talks/rob_reid_the_8_billion_ipod.html
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Re:If you have to ask...
Some TED lecture on that topic.
Unfortunately Pink's argument is built on flawed premises, or at least management don't understand it. The experiments cited don't really apply to a salaried worker, because what they've provided is a short-term goal. The short-term goal is supposed to be "get the candle on the wall", but instead it is "get the money". My salary is not a short-term goal, so it doesn't distract from my day-to-day goals; i.e. I'm thinking "I need to price up a replacement router so we can offer public internet access in the cafe," not "I need to price up a replacement router so that I get paid."
This has encouraged a management double-standard -- it becomes the boardroom excuse for freezing staff salaries, but at the executive end they say "it's not about motivation, I need to be paid lots to stop me moving to a competitor."
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Mandatory Viewing
http://www.ted.com/talks/kirby_ferguson_embrace_the_remix.html The problem with Apple, and many other company's patent wars is that they are trying to fight over ownership of ideas instead of implementation. Coming up with an idea that is simply one step further than every technology it is built upon and then saying "We made this all by ourselves its off limits to anyone else, it's ours now" is total bullshit and it completely disregards the fact that anyone working in a technology field is standing on the shoulders of everyone who came before them. Patent laws work to maintain the current monopolies and do nothing to promote innovation. Even the nature of the question is inherently biased as it frames it in the context of copying from Apply only, as if Apple never did the exact same fucking thing many times previously (like hell Apple invented multi-touch, they didn't even come up with the name).
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Re:Patent System Broken
Agreed. Here's the obligatory TED link, with an interesting view on how the lack of patents, and an obvious and accepted pattern (pun intended) of copying has made the industry huge.
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/johanna_blakley_lessons_from_fashion_s_free_culture.html
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TED Talk on innovating without copyright
... in this case for the fashion industry, but hey, it's interesting and relevant:
http://www.ted.com/talks/johanna_blakley_lessons_from_fashion_s_free_culture.html
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No.
They are not productive. Neither is going to the office apparently. http://www.ted.com/talks/jason_fried_why_work_doesn_t_happen_at_work.html
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Re:If you have to ask...
Some TED lecture on that topic. The idiots proposing the longer work day are idiots and don't know history (worker exploitation and such).
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Re:What food crisis?
According to available data, it is.
http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_growth.html
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Re:Why is 3000 year old brain is a big deal?
Thing is, there is very little you could test unless you get this 3,000 year old brain to boot up. Think of it this way - you are handed 2 non-working CPUs, could you tell if they are different? Perhaps if they have physically different (but human brains naturally deviate from the norm), but unless you have an ability to reverse-engineer these CPUs (and we don't have that ability for human brains) both would be just chunks of silicon.
Related: Have you seen TED talk by Juan Enriquez?
http://www.ted.com/talks/juan_enriquez_will_our_kids_be_a_different_species.html -
Learned Optimism
The path out of depression has been well documented in Dr. Martin Seligman's book Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life. He has spent 30 years of his life in the field of positive psychology and has multiple case studies showing how people can get over "learned helplessness" in all three realms of personal, pervasive and permanent.
http://www.amazon.com/Learned-Optimism-Change-Your-Mind/dp/1400078393/
He has a talk on Ted:
http://www.ted.com/talks/martin_seligman_on_the_state_of_psychology.html
And a website with some questionnaires:
http://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/Default.aspx
To use Chris Farley, who unfortunately committed suicide due to depression, as an example I provide three typical phrases that he would use in his work:
Personal: I suck!
Pervasive: Everything sucks!
Permanent: It will always suck!
Please note that motivational speakers are typically all optimists and people who are unmotivated go to them for a "motivational fix" which lasts for about two weeks without optimism to back it. See also the typical person who starts a diet, exercise regimen or other self improvement plan. -
Its an old adage now ..
"The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it"
If people want that info, they will not use Google to find it. If Google wants these people to search through them, they will change their way.
Off course
... Google has always participated in the filter bubble, so this seems part of that -
In the beginning
Google initially obliterated all competition and provided a truly awesome search engine. Personally, I have observed them getting worse since. Yes, some aspects have improved, but I think their direction is now clear enough to suggest that finally, after such failed attempts as Cuil, opportunity for competition is presenting itself again.
I remember before or around 2008, Youtube changed their search results and related-video function. Previously, Youtube was a rather amazing resource for discovering new things inadvertently. Then they fragmented and obstructed this previously excellent system and along with their web-results, went totally fucking stupid and began personalizing results based on IP addresses, which effectively slaughters objectivity in search results.
All signs indicate that it's time to move away from google. But of course, this is difficult -- if not impossible -- after placing such widespread large-scale reliance upon them. And call me troll all you'd like, but we really don't need to be assisting the NSA through google anyway. And yeah, they do have a partnership. And no, they don't delete any information at all. Someone once referred to google as the "Artificial Intelligence Manhattan Project", a thought at the very least worthy of believable fiction.
What I think we should consider, is building a p2p, torrent-based distributed internet. Censorship would have difficulty thriving and the fault tolerance should be pretty good. Challenging though. And I have no idea how the search would work. But with continued dependency on google, I expect the internet to get more exciting and flashy, but ultimately worse. -
Re:Fed up with all this...Except for the fact that I've seen no proof of any of your statements either. I'm not sure what you wanted to convey by quoting the "non-creative garbage" from somewhere, but the fact that you have a different opinion doesn't make me ignorant. In fact, many opinions are in my side, including artists, economists, lawyers, etc:
http://www.ted.com/talks/larry_lessig_says_the_law_is_strangling_creativity.htmlhttp://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/general/intellectual/againstfinal.htm
Intellectual property: Patents against prosperity | The Economist
Why abolish software patents - software patents wiki (en.swpat.org)
When Patents Attack! | This American Life
Johanna Blakley: Lessons from fashion's free culture | Video on TED.com
Do music artists fare better in a world with illegal file-sharing? Times Labs Blog
The Coming War on General Purpose Computation - Boing Boing
US patent trolling costs $29b: study - Strategy - Business - News - iTnews.com.au
Patents | Electronic Frontier Foundation
http://christianengstrom.wordpress.com/
Zynga might be too close, but the vast majority of games actually copy each other so much that they create a GENDRE for god's sake. And that has been alwways a good thing for gaming in particular. The truth is that yes, there are indeed assholes, there will always be, but they seem to be on both sides and the question remains to where do they cause the less damage.
As far as being non-creative, I'm not sure who you mean. Personally, I develop new software for a living and I was curiously enough working on my novel when I got your reply.
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Re:Fed up with all this...Except for the fact that I've seen no proof of any of your statements either. I'm not sure what you wanted to convey by quoting the "non-creative garbage" from somewhere, but the fact that you have a different opinion doesn't make me ignorant. In fact, many opinions are in my side, including artists, economists, lawyers, etc:
http://www.ted.com/talks/larry_lessig_says_the_law_is_strangling_creativity.htmlhttp://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/general/intellectual/againstfinal.htm
Intellectual property: Patents against prosperity | The Economist
Why abolish software patents - software patents wiki (en.swpat.org)
When Patents Attack! | This American Life
Johanna Blakley: Lessons from fashion's free culture | Video on TED.com
Do music artists fare better in a world with illegal file-sharing? Times Labs Blog
The Coming War on General Purpose Computation - Boing Boing
US patent trolling costs $29b: study - Strategy - Business - News - iTnews.com.au
Patents | Electronic Frontier Foundation
http://christianengstrom.wordpress.com/
Zynga might be too close, but the vast majority of games actually copy each other so much that they create a GENDRE for god's sake. And that has been alwways a good thing for gaming in particular. The truth is that yes, there are indeed assholes, there will always be, but they seem to be on both sides and the question remains to where do they cause the less damage.
As far as being non-creative, I'm not sure who you mean. Personally, I develop new software for a living and I was curiously enough working on my novel when I got your reply.
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Re:Awesome!
Heh, looks rather like I imagined the "compys" in the book.
More to the point, are we sure? There's some compelling evidence* that the similar but larger Nedoceratops and Torosaurus are actually more mature forms of the Triceratops, and that the differences in the bone "frill" are due to morphological changes as the animal matured, much as happens in crested birds like the cassawary today.
*there are distinctive changes in bone porosity as an organism matures and it's skeleton stabilizes. Tested Triceratops bones have porosity characteristic of juvenile animals, where as the other "species" have characteristics of intermediate or adult animals. Similar results were found for several other species groups distiguished mainly by size and morphological skull differences. http://www.ted.com/talks/jack_horner_shape_shifting_dinosaurs.html
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Video link of Jack Horner's TED talk on this
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Re:Did I miss something?
A couple points,
a) to date no dinosaur DNA has been found to have survived.
b) if you were to take some DNA from a mosquito trapped in Amber (a la JP) and clone it - you would just get a mosquito.
c) Jack Horner has an excellent TED talk that discusses this point nicely:
http://blog.ted.com/2011/06/07/building-a-dinosaur-from-a-chicken-jack-horner-on-ted/
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Algebra is necessary, and so it statistics
I found this proposal more insightful than questioning the need for teaching algebra. Teach statistics before calculus: http://www.ted.com/talks/arthur_benjamin_s_formula_for_changing_math_education.html
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No need to be so pessimistic
But the cheap and dirty solution is always going to be cheaper than the economically responsible and affordable solution.
That would be depressing if it were true. But coal will become more expensive than wind in about 5 years. And we have every reason to expect that it will soon be more expensive than solar, but that will take longer.
Sure we need base-load power as well; however, there are many possible solutions in the works for that too.
I believe that conservatives are rightly suspicious of environmental paranoia; however, the suspicion goes too far. AGW is a real and present danger to our civilization, as the science clearly demonstrates. Also, the economics of addressing climate change really aren't that bad. Germany has been doing it, and they managed to grow their economy 3% p.a., during a global recession. Cap-and-trade has been shown to have a negligible (if any) impact on the economy, and it does reduce emissions. In short, conservatives are guilty of economic alarmism.
But I also believe that we would have been ill-served by rolling out massive wind/solar installations in the 80s/90s. (We had consensus in the scientific community in 1979, according to a NAS report from that year.) The technology was too immature. The system of grants and subsidies has helped move these technologies along tremendously, and they are almost ready for prime-time. We are less then a decade from a major shift in energy policy.
With the benefit of hindsight, I believe that we would have been best served by a carbon tax that went directly into technology R&D project, small-scale installations, and subsidies for quality energy efficient housing. It is difficult to know if this would have sped the development of technology, since society has already invested heavily in such projects. However, it would have prevented the misallocation of resources by those who -- for ideological reasons -- believe that the fossil-fuel party will last forever. -
Re:Our best hope? Please.
Population growth looks like it's going to take off soon because the largest generation of human beings in history is reaching breeding age.
Highly unlikely. Watch Hans Rosling's TED Talk on Population Growth. I agree with his assessment. Unless we crash first, we will probably hit 10 billion... but not because of a new baby boom.
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Prescient...
I just saw a TED talk in which the presenter asked this very question.