Madd0's Tech Blog

But only because I want to be just like him when I grow up :P

OK, maybe not just like him, but I'd love to be able to find the balance he seems to have reached of enjoying life fully and using his wealth to help worthy causes.

If you don't care about who my role models are, just take a look at the video. It's very interesting by itself too.

This is the fifth in a series of posts about TED.

This week I'm changing the kind of videos I'd like to show you a little. I've already mentioned that TED includes all sorts of "talks", including comedy and music. From the title of this entry, you probably guessed that I selected music as this week's topic.

First, to avoid going too far from in keeping with this blog's theme, I'm going to start with an electronic instrument that I discovered in the video below: the theremin. I couldn't even start to describe what it is. I just know it detects proximity with two sensors which in turn control pitch and volume, making it sound like a string instrument. I better just let Pamelia Kurstin play it for you.

Notice how, even though the hands are what seem to play the music, actually her whole body is involved.

Listening is another action (yes, action!) that requires more than just the part of the body currently associated with it. You can listen with your ears, but you can also listen with your eyes, your skin, your bones... Evelyn Glennie, a deaf musician, shows us how there's more to listening to music than just hearing.

I had selected another video related to music but since this last one was quite long, I'll stop here for today.

Have a nice week.

This is the fourth in an open series of posts to introduce my dear readers to my favorite TED presentations.

I love reading.

I'm a little picky on what I read, because I like the books I read to be like escape pods out of my current reality into worlds, situations and stories I'm unlikely to be in. That's why the books I enjoy the most are generally fiction.

The one thing I do not like about reading, though, is books.

Books are so fifteenth century! All that tree-cutting that they require, and inks and stuff... And they weigh a ton... And they use up space...

Unfortunately the technology to replace books by something more convenient doesn't seem to be here yet.

I believe that in the near future paper books will be produced in much smaller quantities in the developed world. Most printed material will be replaced by some sort of digital equivalent (not the Kindle, though.)

My view of the future of books will be a subject for a post in the future. For now, I give you a couple of TED videos that are right in synch with it.

The first video is of Erin McKean. A lexicographer that talks about her view of words and dictionaries and how today's technology: computers and the Internet, can already change books and languages.

Before the video and putting book-stuff aside, I particularly relate to this quote:

This is a little-known technological fact about the Internet: that the Internet is actually made up of words and enthusiasm.

I said above that the technology to phase out paper books is not yet here. Sure, there's the Kindle I mentioned before or the slightly-nicer-but-not-yet-there Sony Reader Digital Book, and you can read on PDAs or the iPhone and other such devices. But none of them is quite there yet. They're either not ergonomic enough, or too heavy, or too light, or too small, or too big, or... you get the picture.

People are working on making this happen though. Here's a Jaw-dropping Photosynth demo by Blaise Aguera y Arcas. I guess he's actually demoing Seadragon, the technology behind Photosynth, rather than the latter itself. But Photosynth has the advantage of being publicly available, while you cannot run the other demos he shows.

Imagine technology like that on a device about the size of a paperback. A single color screen with no buttons, just thick enough to hold comfortably. Extended battery life... But well, as I said, this is matter for a later post.

Have a great week.

OK, I know I said this would be a weekly thing, but I've been busy. I should've added a disclaimer somewhere on the regularity.

Anyway, this week I wanted to share with you a couple of videos that talk about what I think are some of the most important qualities in a person. The first one is passion: Isabel Allende tells a series of Tales of passion, anecdotes some of them, about a subject that moves her. It takes very little to get human beings to do things. Most of the time money will do it, sometimes even promises are enough. But one thing is for sure; people will never deliver to their full potential unless they are passionate about what they're doing.

The next video is of J.J. Abrams, one of the creators of the popular series Lost. He's passionate about what he does, so he talks about something else: The mystery box. A gift from his grandfather that is obviously much more than a simple box to him. It gets him talking about my favorite quality in a person: curiosity. The need, no, the will to solve unsolved problems or to answer unanswered questions.

And finally, because I have to pack my bags to go to London, I leave you with Jennifer Lin. She's a 14-year-old pianist that, to me, represents what can be done where you're passionate and curious enough. But please, don't read me. Listen to her:

OK, maybe the title doesn't mean much, but I couldn't think of anything better. So how about you just watch the videos?

I was barely finished with last week's TED post when I stumbled upon the first of this week's recommendations. I know I said that TED videos were only 18 minutes long, but I guess when you're Jane Goodall you're inherently expected to need a little more:

As inspiring as Mrs. Goodall might be, I would have preferred a longer talk from Alan Russell, the speaker on this video called Why can't we grow new body parts?:

Those of you who know me personally, know that, as active as I might be during the week, on weekends I'm basically a vegetable. Well, I'm exaggerating a little, but I do like to take it slowly on weekends. For instance, I like to stay in bed late. I prepare for this on Friday night by leaving my laptop and all my remotes, as well as books or anything I might need in the morning, next to the bed. This way, I can stay under the covers as long as possible, which is usually until my body requires some energy input, or would like to output waste. Anyway, I'm starting to digress here...

Another thing I like to do on weekends is spending a while with TED. I should actually say on TED, but your mischievous little minds will probably wander where they shouldn't. At least until I explain what, and not who, TED is. From their website:

TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader.

Every year TED brings together "the world's most fascinating thinkers and doers" who give 18-minute talks about what they do. Speakers include Chris Anderson, Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, Bill Clinton, Philippe Starck, Al Gore, Jane Goodall, Frans Lanting; and I've only mentioned the "famous" ones here (by which I mean, the ones I know), but there's also "regular" people: mathematicians, anthropologists, musicians, physicists, computer scientists. People you've (or at least I've) never heard about before, such as Majora Carter (actually her talk is the one that made me discover TED), Kenichi Ebina (not everything is talk at TED, there also onstage performance), Ron Eglash, Robert Full and plenty of others.

Most of these talks are described as inspiring, fascinating, beautiful and even funny. I definitively don't mind spending my whole weekend watching these people talk 18 minutes at a time. That's why I've decided that every week I'll be sharing my favorite TED videos on the blog. Every Sunday, when technically possible, I will post here the videos I like the most in an attempt to get you inspired by these wonderful people.

So let's start with the one that got me started. Majora Carter's Greening the ghetto:

And so that you can see how diverse TED videos actually are, here is an extremely funny video from Ze Frank:

See you again with more TED next week ;)