Regina Saphier TED Long Beach 2011 Day 1

Image by redmaxwell via Flickr

TED photo stream slide show (opens in new window) Day 1

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

11:00 AM – 12:45 PM Session 1: Monumental

Janna Levin
Physicist

So, after Astronaut Cady Coleman spoke to us from space, Janna is introduced by Chris. Black holes are not dark on the inside she says… She also shows us the sound of a small black hole falling into a larger black hole…

Sarah Marquis
Explorer

Sarah is in Sichuan, China in the middle of nowhere, talking with Chris via phone. She is walking from Siberia to Australia. Meanwhile we see wonderful pictures taken by her during her long distance nature walk.

David Brooks
Columnist

Why are the most socially skilled people dehumanized when it comes to policymaking? He mentions a study: scientists predicted well from the mother-baby interaction at 18 months if a child would graduate from high school in the future. (In his New Yorker article he wrote: “Researchers at the University of Minnesota can look at attachment patterns of children at forty-two months, and predict with seventy-seven-per-cent accuracy who will graduate from high school.” 18 or 42?) According to other studies people are misjudging their social status, earnings and skills within the US population, highly overestimating their own standing. 95% of professors rate themselves above average teachers. 96% of college students think they have above average social skills. 19% of Americans believe they are in the top 1% of earners. Our suffering leads to our wisdom as interconnected people… I have to say, I don’t know what David was doing at TED… he did not fit my cognitive TED picture. March 13. note: When I read his article in the New Yorker, I changed my mind about him. He is actually much better and funnier in writing. What I think he is trying to say is that there are ways to improve our connected selves: by being better, emotionally more mature parents to future generations, by suffering and learning via life experiences, and by utilizing new scientific results to understand human nature. (I hope the several camera and sound errors will be edited out by the time his talk is uploaded.)

Eric Whitacre
Composer, conductor

We listen to music for a little while… I know Eric and his virtual choir… I think what he is doing with his volunteers is wonderful… I believe this is the message we should send deep into Space!

Wadah Khanfar
Media executive

Al Jazeera’s 43 years old executive says the change we see was inspired by idealistic, globally connected, educated young people who wanted the corrupt old leaders out. This is change from within, not change forced from the outside. He passionately predicts a better and more tolerant future! He looks really happy about what is going on. According to him the youth in the Arab World is much more able to lead those nations… the old regimes are not able to do that well anymore.

Chris introduces LocaTED, a new smart phone application that connects people at the Long Beach site.

Unfortunately, during the entire session the live stream chat did not work at all…

2:15 PM – 4:00 PM Session 2: Majestic

Handspring
Puppeteers

Interesting… but largely a bit too large for the TED stage…

Sunni Brown
Visualizer and gamestorming

Please, go ahead and doodle!

Paul Nicklen
Polar photographer

This is a must see… lots of highly visual presentations this year…

Thomas Heatherwick
Designer

Thomas is a sensitive young man, showing us his elegant building designs. This also a highly visual talk.

Bobby McFerrin
Musician

He does his usual trick: improvising with the audience. 🙂 I had my first hand experience with him, I wrote a TED comment about it last year:

Feb 27 2010: “I did enjoy Bobby McFerrin’s musical talent in New York, at Lincoln Center‘s Avery Fisher Hall around 2000. We were sitting in one of the front rows of the middle section, me on the third seat from the left aisle. He made people sing one by one, after he performed alone on stage. He walked right to my friend’s old classmate and tried to make her sing. She would not. I tried to cheer her to sing, and Bobby noticed. Oh, oh… I realized he was climbing in-between the seats and was suddenly standing right above me, with his microphone. I am no singer, but he made me sing an African sounding duet. Sorry, about my ignorance, no idea what it was. No idea what I was singing, and I know I was off key, but I loved the experience. Can you imagine your own voice filling Avery Fisher Hall together with Bobby McFerrin? Thousands of people paid for the outstanding evening, with him being the only performer, and I got to sing with him. One of my dearest memories from New York. :)”

Read (and rate by clicking on their titles and giving a thumb up) more of my TED talk comments on my TED comment page: http://www.ted.com/profiles/comments/id/270846

5:00 PM – 6:45 PM Session 3: Mindblowing

Carlo Ratti
Architect and engineer

More visual mindblowing… I think the most interesting project Carlo showed us was the trash tracking… from one city through the entire US.

Kevin Stone talked about his Rescue Reel that will save anyone in burning skyscrapers: they will be able to slide to safety. It is a wonderful idea.

Mattias Astrom showed us how formally classified technology is revolutionizing how we map the world in 3D.

Aaron Koblin
Data artist

This is an easy day for me, because most of what happens on stage is visual. Anyway, Aaron plays with data, random people, and the interface that is powered by IT. He shows us the beautiful fabric created by airline traffic data, or the online community created video clip.

From @TEDNews on twitter: “Mike Matas shows the future of digital books with Al Gore‘s “Our Choice” on the iPad. It’s the sequel to “An Inconvenient Truth” ”

Homaro Cantu
Chef

Homaru Cantu and Ben Roche are fooling with our food and taste. They design unusual dishes that either look weird, taste different, or are made of something else… like the burgers that look like meat, but are actually not made of animal sources.

TEDED Brain Trust is introduced: http://education.ted.com/