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Mar 2014

Robert Full

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Full, UC Berkeley biologist, gives a talk on his studies of various animals including cockroaches, crabs and geckos and how they can help us to engineer more efficient robots in the future.

My engineering colleague at Berkeley designed with his students a novel manufacturing technique where you essentially origami the exoskeleton, you laser cut it, laminate it, and you fold it up into a robot. They even have some of the behaviors of the cockroaches. So they can use their smart, compliant body to transition up a wall in a very simple way.

Robert Full: The secrets of nature's grossest creatures, channeled into robots

20 Mar, 2014

Yoruba Richen

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Richen, a filmaker that focuses on the feminist, LGBT & African American communities, presents a talk on the similarities between the gay rights and civil rights movements. Despite the tensions that can be found between the two, she argues that they are in fact very similar and that both movements need to work together towards a common cause and continue to push one another forward towards a better future.

So as these movements continue on, and as freedom struggles around the world continue on, let’s remember that not only are they interconnected, but they must support and enhance each other for us to be truly victorious.

Yoruba Richen: What the gay rights movement learned from the civil rights movement

Mar 2014

Keren Elazari

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Elazari, a cybersecurity expert, talks about the growth of hackers from being cyberpunk protagonists to being a kind of anonymous vigilante. She talks about the unintentional good that hackers are causing by pointing out the weaknesses in internet security so that a stronger, healthier deterrent can be built.

They just can’t see something broken in the world and leave it be. They are compelled to either exploit it or try and change it, and so they find the vulnerable aspects in our rapidly changing world. They make us, they force us to fix things or demand something better, and I think we need them to do just that, because after all, it is not information that wants to be free, it’s us.

Hackers: the internet's immune system | Keren Elazari

19 Mar, 2014

Will Potter

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Will Potter, an investigative journalist, tells of the day he decided to take part in a peaceful protest against animal testing only to find himself arrested and how that day inspired him to delve deeper into a world where peaceful protest is considered terrorism.

Dostoevsky wrote that the whole work of man is to prove he’s a man and not a piano key. Over and over throughout history, people in power have used fear to silence the truth and to silence dissent. It’s time we strike a new note.

Will Potter: The shocking move to criminalize nonviolent protest

Mar 2014

AJ Jacobs

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Jacobs gives a humorous talk on discovering his ancestry through various genealogy sites and finding that we are all linked – no matter how distantly. He invites his audience to the biggest family reunion ever as he discusses the relations he has found along the way.

And my cousin, of course, the actor Kevin Bacon who is my first cousin’s twice removed’s wife’s niece’s husband’s first cousin once removed’s niece’s husband. So six degrees of Kevin Bacon, plus or minus several degrees.

The world's largest family reunion ... we're all invited! | A.J. Jacobs

Anne Curzan

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Curzan, a professor of English at the University of Michigan and a historian of the English language, gives a talk on what makes a word “real” and who has the authority to make modern slang words “real” in the English language. As the language continues to evolve, Curzan explains how modern words are taken and placed into the dictionary as a “real” word.

Dictionaries are a wonderful guide and resource, but there is no objective dictionary authority out there that is the final arbiter about what words mean. If a community of speakers is using a word and knows what it means, it’s real. That word might be slangy, that word might be informal, that word might be a word that you think is illogical or unnecessary, but that word that we’re using, that word is real.

Anne Curzan: What makes a word "real"?

Billy Collins

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Collins presents two very different poems inspired by what he believes a dog might be thinking.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there’s been a spate of books that have come out lately contemplating or speculating on the cognition and emotional life of dogs. Do they think, do they feel and, if so, how? So this afternoon, in my limited time, I wanted to take the guesswork out of a lot of that by introducing you to two dogs, both of whom have taken the command “speak” quite literally.

Billy Collins: Two poems about what dogs think (probably)

Shaka Senghor

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Senghor, an ex-drug dealer out of Detroit,

 a story of being imprisoned for second-degree murder and the redemption that he found while he was in jail through the teachings of Malcolm X and his own writings. He speaks about living a life that is not defined by his past and how we too can come to accept our past and that of others.

My journey is a unique journey, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Anybody can have a transformation if we create the space for that to happen. So what I’m asking today is that you envision a world where men and women aren’t held hostage to their pasts, where misdeeds and mistakes don’t define you for the rest of your life. I think collectively, we can create that reality, and I hope you do too.

Shaka Senghor: Why your worst deeds don't define you | TED

Lorrie Faith Cranor

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Cranor discusses her time spent studying online security and user passwords. She talks about a study that she conducted wherein she discovered a common pattern and habit among password-creators that could easily threaten their internet security.

So I know a lot of these TED Talks are inspirational and they make you think about nice, happy things, but when you’re creating your password, try to think about something else.

Lorrie Faith Cranor: What's wrong with your pa$$w0rd?

Ze Frank

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Frank, an online comedian and web artist, presents a talk on the question “Are you human?” In it he asks his audience to raise their hands to a series of personal questions to judge whether they can indeed consider themselves “human”.

Have you ever lost the ability to imagine a future without a person that no longer was in your life? Have you ever looked back on that event with the sad smile of autumn and the realization that futures will happen regardless? Congratulations. You have now completed the test. You are all human.

Ze Frank: Are you human?

Sara Lewis

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Lewis, a scientist and professor at Tufts University, gives her audience a glimpse into the lives of fireflies. In her lecture she discusses the strange nature of firefly behavior: including elaborate flash dances, predatory eavesdropping and deceit, and the female “firefly vampire”.

The luminous displays are actually the silent love songs of male fireflies. They’re flying and flashing their hearts out. I still find it very romantic.

Sara Lewis: The loves and lies of fireflies

Nicholas Negroponte

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Negroponte, founder of MIT Media Lab, leads a talk on the last 30 years of technology. He also introduces his newest project – “One Laptop per Child”. Negroponte states that he has a desire to create wireless laptop computers that cost around $100 and see that they are given out to children in developing countries. 

We aim to provide each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop. To this end, we have designed hardware, content and software for collaborative, joyful, and self-empowered learning. With access to this type of tool, children are engaged in their own education, and learn, share, and create together. They become connected to each other, to the world and to a brighter future.

A 30-year history of the future | Nicholas Negroponte

17 Mar, 2014

Karima Bennoune

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Bennoune, the daughter of an outspoken Algerian professor that fought death threats for standing up against terrorism, presents four stories of men and women fighting against fundamentalism. People that are standing up for their faith and not allowing it to be used as a tool for violence and crime.

Karima Bennoune: The side of terrorism that doesn't make headlines

Mar 2014

David Kwong

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Kwong, a New York Times crossword puzzle creator and “illusion designer” specializing in film and television, presents a lecture on the human’s primal instinct to “solve”, discussing the relationship between puzzles and magic, the need to create order out of chaos.

I believe that magic and puzzles are the same thing, so I am trying to create this new breed of illusion and enigmas.

David Kwong: Two nerdy obsessions meet — and it's magic

David Chalmers

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Chalmers, explores the state of human consciousness and attempts to explain it as a movie that takes place in one’s mind. He states that he believes there is not a physical, scientific explanation for the human consciousness but rather argues that the mind is not confined to skin or skull, but plausibly may extend beyond them.

How do you explain consciousness? | David Chalmers

Shih Chieh Huang

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Huang speaks on his various forms of art and his goal of giving people an experience to explore. In his talk he shows a helmet that records the movement of the eye, and then uses the blinks to turn on and off a nightlight. He also shows a large bioluminescent sculpture made from bottles, tupperware and garbage bags that moves and acts like a giant, bioluminescent sea creature.

The objects are dissected and disassembled as needed and reconstructed into experimental primitive organisms that reside on the fringes of evolutionary transformation: computer cooling fans are repurposed for locomotion. Tupperware serves as a skeletal framework; guitar tuner rewired to detect sound; and automatic night lights become a sensory input.

Shih Chieh Huang: Sculptures that'd be at home at the bottom of the ocean

Jim Holt

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Writer and philosopher, Jim Holt, talks about the origins of the question “Why does the universe exist?” and the path that has been taken by theorists to answer it.

So I’m going to talk about the mystery of existence, the puzzle of existence, where we are now in addressing it, and why you should care, and I hope you do care.

Why does the universe exist? | Jim Holt | TED

Isabel Allende

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Allende presents a challenge to her audience – that they live a life of passion, no matter what they’re age. Allende talks about some of the fears that she has faced herself as she’s aged and about the choice that she made to make sure that her life was lived fully and without regrets for what might have been.

And, on a final note, retirement in Spanish is jubilación. Jubilation. Celebration. We have paid our dues. We have contributed to society. Now it’s our time, and it’s a great time.Unless you are ill or very poor, you have choices. I have chosen to stay passionate,engaged with an open heart. I am working on it every day. Want to join me?

Isabel Allende: How to live passionately—no matter your age | TED

Shubhendu Sharma

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Shubhendu Sharma, a reforestation expert, presents a lecture on a method that he has devised that has allowed for the process of the regrowth of forests to take place ten times faster than would be seen in the natural world. Because of this he says that he is hopeful that there might be hope for the destroyed forests to thrive once again.

This methodology, I believe, has a potential. By sharing, we can actually bring back our native forests.

Shubhendu Sharma: How to grow a tiny forest anywhere

Zak Ebrahim

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Zak Ebrahim, the son of one of the terrorists that planned the attack on the World Trade Centers, presents a talk on how a person that is brought up in a world of violence and dogma can choose another path. Despite being groomed for a life of hatred, he talks about how he chose another direction for his life and how others can do the same.

For the victims of terrorism, I will speak out against these senseless acts and condemn my father’s actions. And with that simple fact, I stand here as proof that violence isn’t inherent in one’s religion or race, and the son does not have to follow the ways of his father. I am not my father.

I am the son of a terrorist. Here's how I chose peace | Zak Ebrahim