Exhaustion and Inspiration

Having gone on last time about efficiency and packing in as much as possible I'm now out for the count with a lurgy which has knocked me out for the last couple of days. Thankfully with Mathematica on the laptop and collaborators with instant message programs I've been able to continue contributing somewhat to the progress of the current project - a project which is going in all sorts of directions we'd never expected (the best kind of project in my mind).

With the lurgy currently winning I wanted to look for some inspiration (this was not going to come from Spanish daytime television!) and found a couple of great TED talks to share. One of the most incredible ones came from Craig Venter, who is currently running a lab which is pushing the boundaries of creating synthetic life. The hope is that we may be able to make lifeforms which can be tuned to perform processes that life wouldn't naturally evolve to do (at least not so efficiently) in an Earth-like environment. Things like converting high concentration carbon-dioxide back into combustible fuels. Anyway, the process of this is fascinating and well worth a watch:


Plus a talk from Nicholas Negroponte, the man behind One laptop per child, from a talk in 1984 on the future of huge computer interaction. Some remarkably insightful thoughts.

And lastly some rather wonderful theramin playing from Pamelia Kurstin.

Anyway, I'm going to wrap myself back up, make a hot drink and retire once more...

TED talks in Monterey

Follow this year's conference in Monterey, California on the TED website and from their blog. It looks like there's a whole host of interesting talks to watch. Tell me if you find anything particularly inspiring...

Also check out the slightly less high profile, but no less interesting Bil.

One of the latest talks was from Roy Gould, on the WorldWide telescope:
http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif
'a technology that combines feeds from satellites and telescopes all over the world and the heavens, and builds a comprehensive view of our universe.'


This is one of the top on my list to watch soon.

See a few of my reviews here of previous TED talks.

Random computations

There's an amazing looking summer school going on here at the moment. Run by Chaotic Soliloquy's Dave Feldman, the Complex Systems Summer School is about as diverse as any I've ever seen. Though I'm not officially attending I'll try and pop along to some of the lectures. There are lectures on genetic algorithms, the origins of life, Chinese characters, anthropology, molecular biology and lots more. I'll report when I've been to some, hopefully beginning tomorrow.

For now I'll leave you with Nicholas Negroponte's 'One Laptop per Child' talk from TED 2006:

and a photo I took a couple of days back of perhaps the most blatantly dubbed concert I've ever come across. I was just passing and didn't stay for the bad Chinese pop which I could feel was about to descend:

Inspiration from TED Talks

I was going to blog about this later, but I can't wait. I'm currently sitting at home nursing a horrible air-conditioning induced cold, but watching these 20 minute videos online, I'm absolutely mesmerised.

The TED conference (Technology. Entertainment. Design), held every year in Monterey California, gets together the real global innovators in so many areas, from experts in computing, consciousness, architecture, global poverty, future problems and solutions for humanity, ageing, slowness, happiness, and much, much more to talk about where we are today and where we will be in one, five, ten, fifty years down the line.

Many, many videos are online and almost every one I've seen so far has made me excited by the prospects in so many disciplines. A lot of it is speculation, but it's speculation from world experts who have already made a difference. It's inspiring and it's hugely exciting.

The first talk I watched is currently featured on the home page of SciTalks which I spoke about here, and I was immediately hooked.

I should be resting properly and although watching these videos isn't exactly stressful it is really motivating me to get up and get things done, anything, important things, to be a part of all this.

Below I've embedded some of the videos I've watched so far which have impressed me most but please if you find other videos which you are inspired by tell me.

Hans Rosling: New insights on poverty: No more boring data.


Neil Gershenfeld on Fablabs and personal empowerment for individual driven technological developments:


Aubrey De Grey on the future of longevity and the possibilities of living to 1000:


Burt Rutan on the future of space flight:


Blaise Aguera y Arcas on Photosynth and the future of imagery on the web:


Dan Dennet on dangerous Memes:


Jeff Hawkins on how brain science will change computing:


I don't know if you can view my profile but I will continue to update my favourites as I watch more which I think are worth a viewing here.

Although I've embedded these by linking to the Youtube videos you can watch them directly from the TED site (link above).