Alex Steffen and WorldChanging.com

Wow!

I just got done watching a mind-blowing TED talk by Alex Steffen about mankind's transition to sustainability. It's very, very hopeful.



To distill: The Earth is too small and there are too many folks for us all to live as we currently do.

The solutions are many faceted, but boil down to two things: Bright Green Cities- We in the developed nations must work to make our cities as efficient, people-dense, and easy to get around as possible. Invest in infrastructure, low energy buildings, green roofs and a "sharing economy."

AND we must help the billions around the world leapfrog all old technologies and modernize with cheap and robust tech as quickly as possible. Set up community centers to teach computer literacy and programming.

Efficient at home and efficient abroad, everyone sharing and playing nicely together.

He spells it out well, I think.

It turns out that Mr. Steffen runs a site called WorldChanging.com which is like SuperForest's big, serious, older brother. You've got to see it.

Says Alex Steffen about his site: "(It's) a news service for the unimaginable future."

And yet, everything he proposes is very imaginable. What is totally unimaginable is the sort of societal transformation that would occur were everyone's basic necessities provided for using technology.

With everyone interconnected via the net, who can foretell the amazing hybrids and trends to come. As

We shall check in often with WorldChanging. And keeps our looky-balls peeled for Mr Steffen.

Can We All Become Human Calculators? Arthur Benjamin and the Calculator Kids

Hello All,

Okay, first watch this.



After seeing the way these children can quickly calculate massive sums solely by visualizing an abacus, one would think that with the necessary drive and enough practice anyone could learn this skill.

One wonders what other delightful mental tricks we'd be capable of, if we found the right way to visualize them.

If you liked the first video, you'll flip over this one:



Awesome, no?

Here's Arthur Benjamin's website.
His book - "Secrets of Mental Math"
Ooooooh ooo! "Secrets of Mental Math" for the Kindle.
And here is the abacus wiki.

Strandbeest

The beach. Who doesn't love it? A breeze, nice waves, some sun. Three ingredients for a perfect day. The Dutch artist Theo Jansen probably loves the beach too. Since he created a new "lifeform" on it.

He himself calls it a new lifeform, the rest of the world calls it art. I'm talking about Jansen's art project named Strandbeest (Dutch for 'beach animal'). The project features numerous 'kinetic sculptures' like the one above. In short it's a sculpture which can move, in this case it uses the wind.

Seeing such a 'creature' move is pretty fun. Take a look at Jansen's TED talk:



It made me laugh. I thought it was pretty impressive. Wooden creatures that change their walking direction when they get in touch with the water.

-jdh

Ken Robinson @ TED: Schooling and Creativity

Wow. This is an amazing TED talk. Funny, inspiring, and persuasive. Sir Ken outlines what he sees as a fundamental flaw into our world's education system in what is no contest, the laugh out loud funniest TED talk to date.

Enjoy.



Here's a great quote:

"I believe our only hope for the future is to adopt a new conception of human ecology. One which starts to reconstitute our conception of the richness of human capacity.

Our education system has mined our minds in the way that we strip mine the earth, for a particular commodity. And for the future it won't serve us.

We have to rethink the the fundamental principles on which we're educating our children.

We may not see this future, but they will, and our job is to help them make something of it."

Marvelous.



Here's Sir Ken's Wiki
And Sir Ken's site

Steve Pinker @ TED: A World Without Violence

Here's an extremely hopeful and uplifting TED talk from linguist Steve Pinker regarding the decline of violence in the modern world.

A great viddy. Check it out:



I think John, Paul, George, and Ringo said it best:


(as sung by Kaiser Chiefs)

William McDonough @ TED

Waste = Food.
Growth is Good.
Technological Nutrition.

Love William McDonough.

A to the G @ TED

"How many generations in all of human history have had the opportunity to rise to a challenge that is worthy of our best efforts?
We ought to approach this challenge with a sense of joy and profound gratitude..."

-Al Gore

This TED talk is most definitely worth a watch.

Da Vinci's Face

Hello All,

Jackson here.
Boy, I've been over at boingboing all day, and what a wealth of cool!

Here's just one of the great things they've brought to my attention.

Siegfried Woldhek: The true face of Leonardo Da Vinci?


(it's only four minutes long)

Love them Ted Talks!
Love boingboing!
Love love!

Love,

Jackson

Jill Bolte Taylor @ TED

Good Morning All!

This is a truly extraordinary Ted Talk.
Jill Bolte Taylor is a neuro-anatomist who had the good fortune to have a stroke, one that she could study from the inside out.

Neil Gershenfeld @ TED

Personal Fabrication = What you want, when and where you want it.

An amazing TED talk about the present of technology from Neil Gershenfeld.

Malcom Gladwell @ TED

Two quotes immediately stuck with me:

"If you're a worm in horseradish, then the whole world is horseradish."

AND

"By embracing the diversity of human beings, we will find a surer way to true happiness."

Truer words I've yet to hear this day.

Great mind in Mr. Gladwell's skull. I'd love to meet him.

Check out his books: Gladwell.com

Michael Pollan @ TED

Michael Pollan. Soooo awesome. Look at him awesomely steeple his fingers!

Have you read "The Omnivore's Dilemma"? It's an incredible read.

Vik Muniz @ TED

Incredible artist (and Brooklynite!) Vik Muniz talks about what inspires him, his process, and his art.

Enjoy, mes amis.

Vik Muniz @ wikipedia

Daily Inspiration: Biomimicry

Good Morning All,

If you watch one thing today, watch this:



Love to all,

Jackson

TED Talks

I am completely addicted to the TED Talks!

Okay, TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is a yearly conference where great minds get together and share great ideas.
(TED Wiki)

Now, you can access all of those incredible ideas online, in a superclean site.

Beyond the incredible ideas, the site is SO user friendly. You wanna download just the audio? Fine. Where do you want it, ipod or desktop?


This week, I've watched Will Wright discuss his incredible new game, Spore.


I've seen Dean Kamen discuss DEKA's bionic arm.


I've nodded enthusiastically as Gever Tulley highlights 5 dangerous things you should let your kid do.


I've sat astounded as David Gallo showed off the incredible underwater exploits of the octopus.


And that's just a smidge of an incredibly diverse and inspiring set of lectures and talks:



All for free! All for you! Whenev's you want! Such a mind-blowing resource!

I love the internet.

The Beatles were right: It's getting so much better, all the time.

Be excellent to each other.

-J

Will Wright @ TED

Here is Sims creator Will Wright at the TED conference speaking about his new game Spore, recalibrating our instincts, and becoming gods.

Fascinating.

Dean Kamen's New Arm

Dean Kamen...

Wow.

For those of you saying: "Who?"
Dean Kamen Wikipedia

The modern-day Da Vinci has once more outdone himself. Beyond inventing the first portable dialysis machine, or heart stents, or insulin pumps, or gyroscopic wheelchairs, he's now set his sights on prosthetics.

Because so many of our troops in Iraq are coming back missing one or both arms, the Department of Defence came to him and asked him for help. He researched the idea and his team came up with the most amazing thing I've seen today: A working prototype of a prosthetic arm.

Check out this video:



I love and worship this man's ingenuity.

Few people have done so much in so short an amount of time to help their fellow humans. Dean Kamen is an inspiration to us all.

p.s. check out ALL the TED talks! They are so inspiring.
TED talks